


I'm Holding On to What I Know

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Minecraft, M/M, it'll make sense when you read it, nether!ray, well i mean kind of?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 38,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4012294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His fingers dug into something that felt like sand, a material that made him feel sluggish and tired. Once he was sure that he was still alive and he wasn't in some kind of hell that felt the need to take people's memories away he extended his focus to the environment around him, though he soon wished he hadn’t. </p><p>What should have opened up to sky was endless ledges and crags of nether rack, rivers of lava pouring through the cracks and down to the ground. Small outcroppings of glow stone revealed the monsters that hovered through the miles and miles of nether rack and the faraway fortresses that housed some of the more dangerous monsters. It was unbearably hot, too. That was probably the worst part. Now, it wasn't like he could actually remember ever being anything other than blazing hot, since it seemed this was his new reality, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm not completely sure how long this fic is going to be, all I know is it's going to be an exciting ride for all of us. As of now I only have the first one or two chapters written out, so updates will be frequent for a few weeks but no promises they'll stay that way. (By the way the title comes from the song Glowing Eyes by Twenty One Pilots)

His eyes fluttered open to stare at an outcropping of glow stone, his muscles aching and his head pounding. He couldn't think, and it took too long to take stock of himself. He was still whole, ten fingers, ten toes, all of that still there. What clothes he had on his body felt like they were burned or cracked and his feet were bare. It took him a few more minutes to figure something else out.

His memories were gone. Great. 

His fingers dug into something that felt like sand, a material that made him feel sluggish and tired. Once he was sure that he was still alive and he wasn't in some kind of hell that felt the need to take people's memories away he extended his focus to the environment around him, though he soon wished he hadn’t. 

What should have opened up to sky was endless ledges and crags of nether rack, rivers of lava pouring through the cracks and down to the ground. Small outcroppings of glow stone revealed the monsters that hovered through the miles and miles of nether rack and the faraway fortresses that housed some of the more dangerous monsters. It was unbearably hot, too. That was probably the worst part. Now, it wasn't like he could actually remember ever being anything other than blazing hot, since it seemed this was his new reality, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it.

He just really, really wished he hadn’t woken up. 

It wasn't like he remembered much, anyways. The only memories he did seem to have were few and far between. They weren't clear, they weren't defined, and they weren't long. They were scraps, notes scribbled into the margins of a notebook. It felt an awful lot like someone had tried to take his memories away, only to miss a few fragments in the process.

If he closed his eyes and concentrated, really concentrated, he could see a city, he could hear voices yelling and laughing, he could feel the cool night air on him and the aching in his muscles as he swung a pick somewhere deep underground. He could see blurry faces, feel dimmed and distant emotions that were tethered to something he no longer remembered. The strongest of those emotions was fear, quickly followed by panic and defeat. The memories were strange, distanced paintings that he had to treasure or else they would disappear, though some were dark and strange and foreign, a bare brick wall, cold metal, burning fire. He didn’t dwell on those too long since there were other, happier ones to focus on.

From them he managed to gather that there was a world above the one he had woken up in, that there were people waiting for him if he ever managed to find them. The memories told him that he couldn't give up just yet, that he had to get up off of the burning ground and move. He had to move.

"Fucking move," he muttered to himself, forcing his arms to stretch and pushed himself into a sitting position, only managing to stand with a, "Move, move, dammit." 

He swayed on his feet, his center of gravity momentarily shattered. He started walking, trudging through the hot sand slowly, and his feet found the hard nether rack eventually and soon he was completely lost. Well, he supposed, you have to have known where you were at one point to be lost. 

He passed caves and fortresses. The ground gave way underneath his feet, making it harder to walk then it probably should have been. For the most part the landscape was the same. The only thing breaking through the monotony of it all was an open space with platforms made of obsidian scattered throughout it, iron bars sticking up everywhere in random patterns.

He kept walking, not really paying attention to where his feet were taking him, instead choosing to try to figure out a few things. First things first, he supposed. His name. 

It took too long to find a name. Well, first he found a few names that weren't his. They were definitely important, they definitely meant something to him and who he was, but they weren't _his_ name. He wasn't Gavin, he wasn't Michael or Geoff or Jack or Ryan. Those names were important, they meant something, but for the life of him he could only see the same blurry faces as before, the same distant and faint voices that he couldn’t quite hear yet would recognize if he ever heard them.

He was Ray, though he wasn't quite sure what that meant. 

He had a name, but he still didn't know who he was. He didn't know where he was born, he didn't know who his friends were or how he'd ended up... wherever he was. The Nether. That was what it was called. He didn't really know anything. Actually, that wasn't completely true. 

He knew he needed to survive. 

His feet stopped when he came to something that definitely wasn't nether rack. It was stone, covered in moss that was blackened and dead but still obviously moss. His eyes swung over the giant tower punching through the roof of the cave called the Nether, a stone house made of the same mossy stone as the walkway he was walking down, and two wood houses that absolutely should not still be standing since they were, after all, wood. It was all eerily familiar, in the way the other landmark had been, but he couldn’t quite place why.

There was one other house, though, that was made out of hardened sand with a single window and one door. He ran his hands over the doorframe, knowing somehow that this was his house, that this was his home. Did that mean he was supposed to be here, in the Nether? Was this his home? He wasn't sure. It sounded right, but at the same time it didn’t quite fit.

A quick search of the other houses revealed what he was afraid of. He was alone. 

He had no idea where the other inhabitants had gone, or if there was ever anyone living here besides him, but he knew that he was undeniably, unchangeably alone. He supposed he would have to get used to it.


	2. Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... not sure how often updates will be but I'll try to keep them to twice a week at least. The chapters will be at least a thousand words each, some of them will probably be longer, though. As always tell me what you think and enjoy!

He settled into the sand house quickly, finding a bed and a chest inside. Unfortunately the chest was mostly empty but for a few scraps of useless items and a bundle of roses (he didn't touch them, afraid that they would somehow crumble under his touch). Thankfully, the other houses proved better supplied. He found a pair of armored boots in one of the wooden houses. They were blue, though the color had faded. He found a few pairs of yellow pants in the other wooden house, an ample supply of thick gloves in the mossy house, and a black shirt in his house. They made a strange type of outfit, one he didn't quite like, but they would have to do. It wasn’t like he had a lot of options that allowed for outfit coordination. He supposed he would have to live with being a mess of colors and patterns.

He took the red sheets off the bed in one of the houses and cut it up using the shears he had found in a chest and fashioned himself a type of cape that fell over his back as well as his hands. It felt right.

The large stone tower had a cache of bottles stored in it, all of them filled to the brim with water. He would be able to survive here for a while, but not indefinitely. Eventually he would either have to replenish the water supply somehow or leave the Nether for good. For some reason that thought didn’t sit well with him, like there was some faceless thing waiting for him in the overworld that he didn’t want to meet under any circumstances.  

He found mushrooms and bowls and ate stew regularly, preferring them over the alternative, meaning rotten meat off of the pack mobs people called pigmen. The rest of the supplies he found didn’t seem immediately useful, so he just shoved them into a chest if they ever did turn out to be useful. There was one pickaxe, though. Iron. There were many swords, too, though they were all stone. He supposed he would have to make do with what he had. 

It took a while for him to venture out of the city, finding that every time he tried he felt his heart leap into his throat and his stomach churn violently, his chest burning and legs suddenly feeling weak. He didn’t know what caused the reaction. He didn’t know why he was so afraid of leaving the city, all he knew was that he would have to get around it somehow. 

When he finally did he found a group of zombie pigmen, monsters that he almost thought were people. He had felt his heart skip a beat, only for the spark of hope to be extinguished as soon as it had ignited. It hurt, a lot, but again, he didn’t know why. He was kind of getting tired of that, of not knowing.

Maybe that was why he started ignoring the small twinges of pain in his stomach every time he passed by the petting zoo (Why he started calling it that he didn’t know. Just one more thing to add to the list.) Maybe that was why he ignored the signs hung up around the city, presumably jokes he didn’t understand anymore. Instead he explored a lot, eventually learning the ins and outs of this place he supposed he was now calling home. 

He found a few fortresses, though he stopped fearing the blazes that called them home when he discovered that they couldn't hurt him. It wasn’t like they couldn’t blow up the ground we was standing on, hurting him more with the debris than anything. Their fire danced harmlessly off his skin, only succeeding in setting his clothes on fire. After a few replaced capes he figured out how to use magma cream to make them fire resistant. He might not have his memories, but he wasn't dumb. He knew not being burned wasn't natural. 

With nothing else to do, he decided to experiment. He spent a day sitting near a blaze spawner, walking back home unscratched and feeling fine. Honestly, the whole experience had been enlightening, but crushingly boring. It _was_ kind of funny to see the blazes start to get annoyed that they couldn’t hurt him, though. It was only after a while, when he started listening to the random clanks and bangs that he found he could almost form words out of them. Almost being the key word.

Once the blazes figured out they couldn't hurt him, though, they left him alone, and he found he could walk through the fortresses undisturbed. That didn’t mean the whither skeletons left him alone, but thankfully they were not as common in the fortresses as blazes were. He even set up little safe houses if he ever had to spend more than a day at one of the fortresses. He doubted he would ever need to, but it gave him something to do.

He kind of forgot about experimenting until one day (he was never really sure if it was actually a day or not, he just measured it by when he got tired) he was walking back towards the city and a ghast noticed him, sending a fireball at him and catapulting him into a small pool of lava. At first he had panicked, acting as if it was water and clawing up to where he assumed the surface was, his face breaking through to the cool(er) temperatures of the Nether. He walked out unharmed, though he felt the same stomach churning, weak legged, heart pounding feeling as before. He figured it meant something bad was linked to it, so he didn't actively fling himself into the rivers of lava waiting below the outcrops of nether rack that he walked on daily. 

It quickly turned into a monotonous routine. Wake up, explore, eat, sleep, repeat. 

It was all the same until the day a nether portal opened up in the middle of the city. 


	3. Gavin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah... some plot in this chapter. Hope you enjoy!

He heard it before he'd seen it. It was a strange sucking, warping, wobbling sound that was so different from what he was used to that he froze before his door, not sure if he should venture out or not. It only got louder the longer he stood there so he decided that waiting inside would do him no good. He silently slipped out, closing the door securely behind him and scaling the side of his house and peered over it to see what the cause of the noise was. 

It was a portal, that much he could identity. It was constructed completely out of obsidian with a swirling purple center that made him nauseous if he stared at it too long. The portal wasn't the important part, though. No, it was the man that stepped out of it. His heart leapt into his throat and he couldn't breathe for a solid minute. Faded memories crashed into him, bringing blurred images and distant voices to his mind. For a second he almost felt whole again, but the feeling was fleeting and afterwards he only felt hollow.

The man had shaggy, light hair, a greed tunic and a green scarf wrapped around his neck that draped almost to his knees. He snorted to himself at the absurdity of a man choosing to wear such ridiculous clothing to the Nether of all places. Slung over his shoulder was a bow, a quiver just beside it. A sword hung from his hip as well, light armor covering his chest and legs. He reached into a pouch at his side, pulling out a bottle with some kind of potion in it that sloshed around as the man took a sip. If he had to guess he’d say it was of fire resistance.  

He heard the man mutter something that sounded a bit like, "Bloody stupid idiots. Why can't they get their own blaze rods? Why do I have to do it?" 

He laughed, a bit louder this time. It was weird, since he hadn't really laughed since he'd gotten to the Nether. It felt weird, foreign, but at the same time familiar. It was a strange combination, one he wasn’t sure how to interpret. Thinking about it, he hadn't really talked, either. He wasn't sure if he even remembered how, honestly. He supposed he'd find out. 

The man, Gavin, he could barely recall, wandered in the general direction of the nearest fortress. He glanced between the quickly retreating figure and the portal, pondering which one he should go after first. Ray shrugged, grabbing his bag of supplies and tailing the new addition to his usually barren landscape. The portal would still be there when he got back. 

It took him way too long to find the fortress, though he couldn't blame the man. He hadn't spent a ridiculous amount of time in the Nether, learning every cave and shortcut. He didn’t know that if he turned left the world seemed to stop abruptly leading to a straight drop down into the oceans of lava waiting below. He didn’t know there was a shortcut just a few feet away, hidden behind two chunks of quarts ore.

Once they reached the fortress Gavin dug a sword out and went looking for the blaze spawners, a determined look on his face. He seemed to know what he was doing, but something told him not to think that, that this was Gavin and he would mess it up sooner or later.

Honestly, Ray should have expected things to go wrong. Well, he did, he just hoped it would be later rather than sooner.

-.-

Ray sat, looking at Gavin as he bent down to pick up one of the fallen blaze rods. He had fared well against the blazes, killing most of them without incident. Honestly, he would have been impressed if he hadn’t tripped at one point, almost getting himself killed with that small misstep. It wasn't until he wasn't paying attention that a stray blaze chose to make itself known. Ray jumped up, racing towards it and plunging his sword through its chest, the fire and heat washing over him harmlessly. He might not remember Gavin very clearly, but he didn’t want someone to die if he could prevent it. The blaze fell down, dead, and Ray quickly ducked behind a wall as Gavin turned, having heard the commotion. "Wot the bloody hell..?" He heard him mutter and he couldn't help the bark of laughter that sprang from his throat. 

He knew Gavin had heard it, he knew he was quickly advancing on his hiding spot. He did the only sensible thing an amnesiac, confused and terrified person could do. 

He ran. 

He ducked into caves and shortcuts, using his intimate knowledge of the Nether to make it back to the city with plenty of time to go through the portal and replenish his water supply. Thankfully the portal dumped him somewhere where there were no people, though the large brick house was kind of strange, for it obviously didn't house anyone. It was like someone had decided it was a good idea to build it, fully furnish it, and then leave it without ever using it.

He spent a few minutes breathing deeply, taking in the cool air and the new smells and sounds and sensations. It felt free, open, and bright, unlike the stuffy, sulfuric air of the Nether. It felt nice, blessedly cool, and Ray loved every second of it, though it was still a strange and sudden change from what he was used to. It was so much different from what he was used to he actually felt his teeth chatter as the cool air brushed against his skin. He pulled his cloak closer and leaned over to look into the fountain, not sure what he expected to see. 

The face he saw was covered in soot and grime, short, charred hair falling into his eyes. There were burns on his face, just like there were burns on his arms and small scars littered his jawline, smaller and less pronounced then the numerous other scars he had found on the rest of his body. The eyes scared him a little, a dim red that almost looked black, almost like a dying fire. His eyes were tired and sunken into his face by the huge bags that told the world he needed to sleep much more then he actually did. (It wasn't like he could sleep for long with those terrible dreams.) 

He found he couldn’t stand to look at himself anymore so he finished with his water bottles and packed them all carefully into his bag.

He turned away from the fountain and went back through the portal. 

That night he found himself staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the still active portal, wondering if he should take the exit out of this hell permanently. It was a question he would have to answer eventually, but he wasn't quite ready to face whatever the world had to throw at him. It felt weirdly safe in the Nether, like as long as he stayed he wouldn’t have to face the world, he would never have to see that faceless man that became sharper every day. If he went to the overworld that person was there somewhere, waiting with his fire and his knives and cold metal tables. He didn’t want to face that just yet.

So he stayed, deciding to let time decide when he would leave.


	4. Making Plans

They were all sitting around the table, talking and arguing and laughing. Some of them were eating, others were too busy talking to even touch any of the food set out on the table. Gavin was shouting the loudest, frustrated that he wasn’t getting anywhere with this. Couldn’t they see this was important?

"I'm telling you, I bloody saw someone!" Gavin yelled, frustrated that they didn't believe him. Or maybe they did and they were just making fun of him. It had taken too long to even tell his story and get everyone to listen to him. He was almost positive Geoff had dragged on that story about the skeleton archer just so Gavin couldn’t tell his own story.

"I bloody saw someone!" Michael mimicked, laughing as he did so. There were snickers from most of the other people at the table as well. It only served to make Gavin’s face heat up. 

"Last time you said you only heard them, now you're saying you saw someone. Make up your mind, Gav," Geoff said, also not taking Gavin's claim seriously. It had taken at least three times to get everyone to listen to him and now they weren’t even taking it seriously. He was about to start pulling out his hair in frustration. Why didn't they believe him? This wasn't a joke!

"I thought-" he stopped himself. He didn't want to say it, but he knew it was the only way for them to take him seriously. Besides, he was almost positive it was true. He took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for any and all reactions that they could throw at him.

"You thought what, Gav?" Ryan asked, quietly. He was the only one that wasn't laughing at him, so he turned and addressed him instead of the other assholes in the room. Ryan did tend to know when things were a joke and when things should be taken seriously. 

"I thought that... I think it was Ray." His voice hitched a bit at the end and he winced.

The room went deathly silent. Gavin gulped, pressing his hands together in his lap. Ryan looked like he was stuck between being hopeful and shouting at Gavin for bringing that up, Jack looked concerned, Geoff even more so. Michael looked like he was thinking, about what Gavin didn’t know. Geoff turned to Michael, asking, "Have you heard anything from Ray lately, Michael?" 

While Ray had been very close to Ryan in the months before he left it was still obvious to everyone that out of all of them he trusted Michael the most, which was unsurprising, especially since they had known each other for years before the city had even been built. That was probably why, whenever news arrived about Ray or a letter from the man himself made its way to the city, it was always addressed to Michael.

He shook his head. "No, not since his last letter. He said he was going to the plains, you know, the ones past the swamp? He said he wanted to see if anyone else was living around here besides us and everyone in Cock Byte. That was a while ago, though," he added as an afterthought.  

"What would he be doing in the Nether, Gavin?" Geoff asked, almost like he was trying to convince himself that Gavin couldn’t possibly be right. It sounded like he was worried about Ray, and knowing Geoff he probably was.

"I don't bloody know, Geoff!" Gavin yelled, at his wits end. "But I know what I saw - heard. I know what I heard. It was Ray." 

"You sound pretty sure," Michael said, in a tone that was hard to place for Gavin. If he didn't know any better he'd say they were starting to believe him. 

"I am sure!"

"Then why don't we try to find him?" Ryan said, and it startled Gavin. He honestly wasn't expecting anything to come from this, but apparently life was just full of surprises. At least now he would be able to find out if he actually did hear Ray and not some random person that was in the Nether at the same time he was.

"What?" Jack interjected. "You don't even know for sure if he - if he's living in the Nether or if he just happened to be there. Why are you going to bother? If it is Ray I'm sure he can take care of himself."

There was silence as everyone processed what Jack had said. He made a valid point, but Gavin whispered, "I'm worried about him. He... ran before I could talk to him. Why would Ray do that? I think something's wrong with him."  

With that Ryan and Michael decided to help him try to find Ray, if it was Ray. It didn't take that long to devise a plan, though Jack and Geoff had left, calling them idiots and claiming it wasn't worth their time. Gavin could see the hope in their eyes, though. He knew as well as everyone else how much Geoff missed Ray. He just never said anything because he knew Ray was happy exploring the world instead of tethered to the city. 

Ryan had jumped on wholeheartedly after the doubt was forgotten. Gavin suspected he just really wanted to go to the Nether again, though he didn’t have any idea why that would be. It was either that or he really,  _really_  wanted to see Ray again.

"So I'll come in after you guys leave the other city, and if you have a tail, I'll know," Ryan said. "I know a few spells that can identify life forms, it shouldn't be an issue even if he is hiding." 

"Why would he be hiding?" Gavin muttered, but was ignored. 

"Sounds good to me," Michael nodded in approval. He seemed to think about something before he said, “What if it’s not Ray? What if it’s someone else or if there’s no one at all.”

Ryan shrugged. “Hey, at least we get to go to the Nether. We can always get some more supplies if our initial plans don’t work. It won’t be a total waste.”

Michael nodded. “Yeah, that seems good to me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So at this point it might be a good idea to mention that I'm considering writing a main storyline for this fic and then maybe accepting prompts or questions about the world/characters here or on my tumblr (the same as my ao3) and posting what I write in a separate work that's just the prompts. Idk it's an idea what do you guys think about it?


	5. Don't Hide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More plot. Nice nice.

It didn’t take long before the portal activated again, this time spitting out two people. One was Gavin, the other was a man with curly brown hair covered in what looked like a bearskin, a blue backpack slung over his shoulders and a well-meaning scowl on his face. (Ray wasn't sure how a scowl could be well meaning, but somehow this man made it work.)

It took him a second to find the name of the newcomer, though he found it nonetheless. His name was Michael, and for some reason he suddenly felt a lot safer. It was a strange feeling, one born from intense trust between two friends. He was almost tempted to talk to them, to ask them who he was, tell them that he couldn’t remember, talk to them about the things he did remember, about the fire and cages. He didn’t, though. He couldn’t bring himself to, not yet.

They quickly started walking towards the fortress, Ray following closely behind. It was silent for a while, but not forever. This time, unlike the last time, they talked. 

"D’you think this’ll work, Michael?" Gavin asked, and Ray couldn't help but feel a spark of pride that he remembered their names properly. He just had no idea what they were talking about. 

"I don't know, Gav. Ryan just said he’s know. I have no idea what kind of weird magic shit he has up his sleeve." Their conversation only served to confuse him, but there was a name that made him stop, like physically stop. 

Ryan. 

The name sent a warm spark through his chest and he struggled to put a face to the name but couldn't. For some reason that disappointed him, like it was a crime that he couldn’t remember Ryan. He ducked behind an outcropping when Michael glanced behind them. They seemed to be doing that a lot, which was highly suspicious, even in the Nether. Ray glanced behind him, trying to see whatever they were looking for. 

He saw a figure in the distance, picking their way through the treacherous terrain of the Nether. He felt his heart leap into his throat and he wedged himself into a crack in the wall, planning to follow behind the newcomer, though when he passed him he glanced in his direction, making it clear that he knew Ray was there. He didn’t move until he was positive the person had gone, wondering if he should just give up and return to the city. Something made him move, though.

The person kept walking, no weapons visible except for a long staff, and Ray followed at a safe distance, not bothering to hide when he turned, instead just hoping he wouldn't try to talk to him. They reached the fortress and the man met up with Gavin and Michael. 

"Did you see the bloody bastard?" Gavin asked, whispering, and Ray had to strain to catch his words. He felt his stomach churn because they were talking about him. They were talking about him, they were _looking_ for him. His first instinct was to run, to get away from them as fast as possible, but the same feeling as before stopped him. He felt _safer_ with them around, he felt like he _should_ be around them.  

"Yeah," the man said, and with a jolt Ray realized it was Ryan. "I saw him. He saw me, too, though." 

"So, what?" Michael says, maybe a bit too loudly. "He knows we're looking for him?"

Ryan winced. Ray’s heart skipped a beat. So he had been right. "Well, now he does." 

He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down and think. They were looking for him. They were likely friends. Had they missed him? Did they think something terrible happened to him? Were they worried about him? Did they have any idea where he had been, and if so why had they not tried to rescue him?

_Quiet_ , the rational part of his mind whispered, _they couldn’t have possibly known where you were. The Mage is too careful for that._

"So, what, you're saying he's listening?" Gavin asked, foregoing whispering. "What the bloody hell are you doing in the Nether, Ray?" 

His heart skipped at hearing his name but thankfully he was spared replying by a fireball impacting near them, shot by a blaze. Ryan whipped out the staff Ray had seen before, keeping most of the fire off of them. Ray quickly turned around, hearing the telltale clanking of a blaze and belt a fireball impact with his chest, not hurting him but throwing him towards where his probably-friends were standing. 

He coughed, trying to get his breath back in him from hitting the ground so hard, staring dazedly at the concerned face of Ryan that was hovering over him. He groaned and tried to heave himself up, only succeeding when Ryan held out a hand to help him. He took it after a moment’s hesitation.

The blazes hadn't magically disappeared in the few seconds he had been knocked down, unfortunately. Ray momentarily glanced at the confused and concerned faces of his friends before he pulled out one of his last swords, stepping in front of these people that had disrupted the monotony of this life that he never wanted, and steadied the point at the blazes. He might not remember them but he wasn’t about to let them get hurt if he could help it. He took a step forward, but only a step, before Ryan grabbed his arm. 

"Ray, what the hell are you doing?" He sounded worried, he sounded like he knew him, which he obviously did. "You can't just- just fight a blaze without help, let alone two."

"Watch me," he said, and even he flinched at how underused and broken it sounded. It hurt to talk, so he didn't say anymore. 

“At least let us help you, you bloody idiot!” Gavin shouted, but he just shook his head. They could get burned, they could be hurt by the blazes. He couldn’t, so he would fight them alone.

The first blaze went down without problem, and he heard the sound of proper iron swords impact against the blaze's defenses. Ray shot a glare back at them, telling them to stay put with a glance. Momentarily distracted he felt a fireball burst against his chest again, throwing him back and knocking him against Ryan. The man looked panicked, as if he expected Ray to fall over dead by a little fire. 

Actually, thinking about it, he had no idea how many fireballs a normal person could take. From Ryan's expression, it was usually one. Ray pushed himself off of the taller man, searching for the sword he had dropped. He spotted it a few feet away and lunged for it, grabbing the hilt and swinging it up towards the blaze, only for him to be hit with a heatwave that knocked his head against the ground and sent spots dancing in front of his vision. 

Something he'd learned about blazes from his time in the Nether was that blazes, kind of like creepers, had a type of failsafe where they sent out a wave of fire that was meant to burn anything near it to a crisp. Good thing he was weirdly fire resistant. 

His vision turned to black as he felt himself slip unconscious. 


	6. The Overworld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early chapter and super long too. Hope you enjoy it and hope its not super hard to follow.

He woke up somewhere he wasn't familiar with, and that sent him into a panic. It was a deep rooted, foreign fear that had no basis that he was aware of, but unbelievably strong either way. He leapt out of the bed he was laying in, scrambling toward a door he had only just noticed. The only coherent thought in his head was that he had to get away, that he couldn’t let it happen again. He felt someone grab his arm and it only served to fuel his panic. The grip was strong, but not as strong as his fear, the fear that was blocking out any rational thought or lingering memory.   
  
The fear didn't let him realize the person holding him was Ryan, it only activated something inside him that even he had no idea he could do.   
  
Ryan released his arm with a loud shout, withdrawing from the flames that danced over his skin. Without anything holding him back, Ray ran through the door, almost crashing into a wall in the process, only to find a hallway. He ran down it, finding winding stairs that presumably led to an exit. At that point, though, the panic was receding.   
  
Ray, shaking and suddenly feeling nauseous, sat down, burying his face in his hands, taking deep, calming breaths. He pushed the terrible memories away, refusing to acknowledge them. He wanted to cry, he wanted to run, he wanted to vomit all at once. He didn’t know why only the memories of the Mage kept coming back, why he couldn’t find anything from before, when he had friends and a life and he laughed every day. He didn’t know why only the bad memories were coming back so he just chose to ignore them, act like they never happened. It wasn’t working very well so far.  
  
He felt a hand on his shoulder and he flinched away from it violently, causing Ryan to hold up his hands. Ray took some calming breaths, trying to calm down. "Woah, woah, hey, it's ok, it's alright, Ray. You're safe, you're in the city."   
  
That didn't really help him, seeing as he had very few memories about his life before the Nether, before the Mage. All he knew was he was very, _very_ cold and he couldn't bring himself to speak.

They sat there for a while, Ray keeping his head down, making sure he wouldn't have another panic attack, Ryan sitting next to him fiddling with something in his hands. It was nice, for once not having to worry about his surroundings. It was nice, just sitting there. Too bad Ryan had to break the silence. "What happened to you, Ray?" He asked after a while.

The question struck something deep inside him and he almost cried it felt so bad. It felt like something inside of him was burning and clawing its way up from his stomach through his throat. He swallowed it down and shrugged, ignoring the much, _much_ clearer memories of what Ryan was asking him to explain.

His answer, or, rather, lack of one didn't seem to impress Ryan. "What does that mean? A shrug isn't an answer, Ray. You left us, the least you could do is tell me what you've been doing."

He swallowed hard. Well, time to lie. "I don't know," he whispered, his voice cracking and grating and underused. It hurt, but not as much as the tone Ryan used next.

"What?" He whispered back, almost sounding pitifully defeated. Then, almost laughing hysterically, "What do you mean you don't know?"

He shrugged again, and he felt a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look at Ryan. "Ray. What do you mean you don't know?" He just stared at Ryan without replying. He was a smart guy. He could figure it out. At least he hoped he could. "Do you... do you not remember?" There, see? Ryan could figure it out.

Ray just kept staring, knowing that Ryan would take it as an answer. At least it wasn’t a complete lie. He _did_ remember some things, they were just things he would prefer Ryan not to know about. "How much... how much do you remember?"

He pointed at the other man, saying quietly, "You're Ryan." He looked at Ray, like he expected something more. When nothing came he looked concerned.

"Anything else?"

"Not really." Nothing he had to worry about. It was over. Done. Ryan didn’t have to know about it.

The silence was back, and Ray was glad for it. They sat there for a while before the cold started getting to him again and he was shivering. Ryan looked at him, concerned.

"You alright?" Ray shook his head, teeth chattering. "Hell, how long were you in the Nether?" Ray stared at him. "That long, huh?" Without another word Ryan took off the cloak around his shoulders and wrapped Ray in it, standing up and dragging Ray along to an open room with a purple floor that was considerably warmer than the rest of the house. He could hear fire crackling even though the fireplace was empty.

There Ryan decided that he should talk more. "So... you probably don't remember this, but... here."

He shoved something into Ray's hands and it took him a moment to realize it was a pair of goggles, the red lenses set into two small cylinders connected to a strap of leather. Without really thinking Ray put it on, though not over his eyes, letting it rest on his head. It felt right. "Thanks," he whispered.

There was more silence and Ray could tell Ryan was dying to ask him something. He waved his hand as a go ahead and suddenly he was barraged by Ryan's quick talking. "How did you do the - the fire thing? How did you survive so long in the Nether alone? I'd assume you would have tripped and that would have been the end of it but - and you didn't have any burns from the blaze, but you do have a lot of old burns on your body -"

Ryan was interrupted by the door getting thrown open and Ray being smothered in an extremely strong hug. He had to tap the shoulder of his assailant, indicating he was having trouble breathing, before he was released. "What the shit is wrong with you, Ray? I thought you were - I thought you were dead or something where the hell did you go?"

"Uh- hey, Michael," Ryan tried, only to get overpowered by Michael's much louder voice. 

"You hadn't written in forever, I thought something had happened to you. Geoff's always worried about you, you know. The least you could do was - was write." Michael's voice was getting progressively louder but there was no anger in it. It just sounded defeated. 

"Michael!" Ryan yelled, silencing the younger man. "He doesn't remember."

"He doesn't - you don't - what, exactly, do you not remember?" 

"He, well, he doesn't really remember... anything."

With that Michael shut his mouth, silence falling on the small group. Honestly he was glad Ryan had explained it. He wasn’t sure he could convince them all that he remembered absolutely nothing. Honestly, he kind of wished he did. Michael turned to Ray, a concerned look in his eyes. "You don't remember... anything?" Ray shrugged. "Do you... know who I am?"

"Kinda," he said quietly. He fiddled with the goggles on his head a bit before lifting his eyes to meet Michael's. "I... don't want to... think about what happened to me. Sorry." He winced. So much for making them think he didn’t remember.

"You don't - what happened to you?" Ryan asked, suddenly interested. "Why don't want to think about it?"

Ray let out a sigh. He really didn’t want to talk about it, but he felt like they at least deserved an answer. He was tired of lying anyways. "It hurts." 

That seemed to, for lack of a better descriptor, scare them. "It hurts?" Michael asked, straddling the line between concerned and furious. Ray just nodded, his hands starting to shake. He felt the fire building in his stomach and it was too much to just push down this time.

"Ray, what -?" 

He didn't hear what Ryan said next, he couldn't hear much of anything above the roaring in his ears. It felt like a fire was building in his chest, building around him and pouring out of him. It felt terrible and he wanted it to stop. He just wanted it to stop. He didn’t want to remember.

As suddenly as it had started it was gone and Ray found himself on his hands and knees, hands pulled into white knuckled fists. The previously purple ground looked blackened and burnt, the damage reaching a few feet away before it abruptly stopped. He had to swallow down a sob at the sudden relief of the terrible fire that hadn't left him since he woke up in the Nether. 

He looked up shakily, not sure what to expect. What he saw broke him just a little more. It wasn't like he could remember them very clearly but he knew friend when he saw them, and these people, his friends, were looking at him in fear. 

"Wha - I - Ray," Michael tried to say, finally foregoing words and just walked towards him, kneeling down beside him. He tried to reach out but Ray wrenched away, shaking his head furiously. He had no idea if he would hurt Michael, he didn't want to hurt Michael. He never asked for this, he just wanted to be let go -

He swallowed the fire, taking deep, calming breaths. Ryan was suddenly next to him, the fear still there in his eyes but it was mostly overshadowed by curiosity. "What the hell just happened, Ray?" 

He looked away, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. He wanted them to stop looking at him like he... like he was a monster or something. He wanted to stop thinking about what happened. "I don't know," he said, hoping they would drop the subject. He didn’t want to talk about what happened when - 

He stopped thinking about it. It hurt too much. 

"Ray, look at me." It was Ryan's voice, and Ray found himself complying. Ryan let out a sharp gasp and it only served to worry Ray. What was it? Did he do something wrong? "Your eyes -"

He looked at the other man curiously, wondering what he was talking about. Ryan took out his staff, waving it in front of Ray, creating some kind of mirror that hovered in the air. What he saw almost made him wrench away, but something stopped him. 

His eyes were a dull, burning red, the skin around his eyes blackened as if burnt. On one of his cheeks was a strange symbol, a mark that almost looked like a brand. It wasn't big, it wasn't too visible unless you were looking for it. It brought a feeling of nausea over him as he saw flashes of half remembered things, things he would rather have left buried and forgotten. Things he had managed to not think about for this long.

He saw rows and rows of cages, some holding dead things, others half-alive things. He felt fires, heard screams (some of them his own), and saw people. A girl with burning red hair, a boy with horns in his hair, a dragon, thrashing against its chains, demanding to be let free. He felt something get wrenched and pulled and cut out of him, something that he supposed was him, and in a split second all of it was gone. 

He looked at Ryan, biting his tongue, not willing to say anything about what he remembered. He would, eventually, when he could think about it without wanting to throw up, but for now he just couldn't do it. So he stayed silent as Ryan spouted nonsense about blazes and fire magic, only leaving when Michael and Ryan had to leave, to explain all that happened to the rest of the crew. 

Ray slept in a strange bed that night, staring at a wall he didn't recognize, trying to push the terrible memories out of his mind.


	7. A Long Night

_"Do you know what I'm going to do to you?"_

_"What if I took your memories? Would that make it easier?"_

_The words were spoken softly, faintly, as if he was watching it happen to someone other than himself. He couldn’t see, but he could feel the cold metal under him, could feel the presence of him, and he knew what this was supposed to be. More words came, ones like “failure” and_ “ _disappointment.”_ _He squeezed his eyes shut, praying for the nightmare to end, hoping that it was all this was. A nightmare._

_The scene only changed, though, his eyes finally seeing a light. A torch on the wall illuminated a girl huddled in the corner. "Are you alright?" he heard himself say. The girl didn’t respond, and his heart skipped a beat. This wasn’t how it happened. He looked around, trying to find the source of the silence, only to feel himself falling._

_His back impacted against hot sand, knocking the breath out of him, his vision rapidly fading as a portal closed above him._

He woke up with a start, breathing heavily, eyes skittering across the barely illuminated walls. Strange walls, a place he didn't recognize. His heart didn’t let him hear anything else that might be in the room with him and he felt like someone was watching even though the room was empty. He didn’t like it here. It was strange and cold and lonely, unlived in and built in the place of another. It didn’t feel right, it felt strange and constricting. He wanted to get out.

He sat up slowly, his arms shaking so badly he almost couldn't lift himself up. He searched his memory desperately, trying to figure out where he was, what was going on. It was like trying to dig through a wall of nether rack with nothing but his hands. Slow, but not impossible.

It scared him that all he could come up with for the longest time was that room, that place, the fire. 

He stumbled out of the bed, walking unsteadily towards a door that he could see framed by light spilling out of the cracks around and beneath it. Leaning against a wall outside of the doorway he forced himself to keep moving. He had to get out. He wanted to see the sky. He had to make sure that he wasn't still - that he could get out. He didn't want it to happen again. It couldn't happen again. 

He had escaped, though, right? He'd gotten out, it was all over and done with. He was safe. Right? He was in the city, where people cared about him and worried about him and would know if he was gone. He didn’t have to worry about it anymore. He wasn’t positive he knew where those conclusions had come from, but he was glad for the relief of the panic that had threatened to break through again.

Eventually he found himself outside, the stars shining brightly and the city illuminated by the moon. The colors were a bit muted, though infinitely more diverse then the ones in the Nether. There were small sounds, hisses and creaks and howls, all different then the explosions and cries of the monsters native to the Nether. He shivered violently as a breeze blew by him. It scared him that he couldn't recognize his surroundings. It was a collection of buildings, it was a city. 

He didn't recognize it even though he felt like he should. He didn't feel threatened, he didn't feel scared looking at the warm lights glowing from a building to his left, so he calmed down. As he did it all came filtering back, blurry and confused, but it came back. 

He found himself standing in front of the house, the only house with any lights on, and he knocked on the door. He didn't want to be outside any longer but at the same time he didn't want to be in that strange house alone anymore. It reminded him too much of that place. It was too empty and lonely.

The door opened almost immediately with a, "Ray? What the hell are you doing here? It's fucking late, dude." Michael. His name was Michael. He took a deep breath. The memories were coming back, of Ryan and Gavin and Michael, of all the things that had happened in the last few days.

"Couldn't sleep," he muttered, and Michael nodded, stepping aside to let him come in. 

He wandered in, immediately thankful for the warmth of his house. He sat down at the foot of one of the beds (Michael had two, why he didn't know). Michael sat next to him, silent and obviously trying to be comforting. They didn't say anything to each other, they just enjoyed each other's company. It was nice.

Ray's eyes wandered over everything in the small home, the windows barely revealing the trees outside, the paintings on his walls and the chests shoved in a corner. There were a few swords hung up on the wall, some diamond a lot iron. It felt lived in, like a home, like it belonged there and welcomed him to stay for as long as he needed to.  

"We missed you, ya' know." The statement broke the silence and startled him just the tiniest bit. Michael must have noticed because he said, "Sorry." 

Ray shrugged with one shoulder, pulling the sleeves of his shirt farther down, hiding his hands. He didn't want to worry Michael, he didn't want him to know what happened to him. It would worry him too much. "Don't worry about it." 

"You said you couldn't sleep," Michael said slowly. "Want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

Michael took the hint and dropped the subject, instead starting to tell him about all the adventures they had gone on while he was gone, talking about people half remembered and places not quite forgotten. He kept talking, long and steady, eventually going back to days when Ray was there, things he didn't remember happening but Michael told between laughs. Ray closed his eyes, letting Michael's words lull him to sleep.


	8. Story Time

He woke up the next morning feeling better than he had in a while. He pushed himself up, his hands steady, and glanced over to see Michael sleeping in the other bed. He smiled to himself. It felt almost perfect, or at least perfect compared to everything else that had happened to him lately. He didn’t think about what happened, though, because if he did it would ruin the small moment of bliss that was already rapidly fading.

The day hadn't really started yet, the sun just starting to peak over the horizon. He was glad for that, since it gave him a few minutes to sit in silence, safe silence, comfortable silence. It felt nice to be safe for once. Ray got up slowly, walking towards one of the swords that was hanging on the wall. He reached towards it, tracing his hand across the sharp edge.   
  
He sucked in a sharp breath as he felt the skin of his hand get cut, wrenching his hand back and holding it up in front of his hand, wondering why the hell he had thought it was a good idea to put his hand near the very sharp sword. The blood trickled down his hand, a bright red-orange that almost seemed to glow in the dim light. A few drops hit the wood floor, smoking and blackening the surface. Almost as suddenly as the cut opened it was closed again, leaving no sign that it had been there but a thin line that looked vaguely like a burn if a burn could look like that. He blinked, surprised. He hadn’t known he could do that. Just another thing to add to the list.  
  
"What are you doing?" Michael asked, startling him.   
  
He turned around quickly, shoving his hand behind his back. Michael rubbed his eyes, yawning. "Nothing," Ray said quickly, wiping the blood that had leaked out onto his hand off of it. Michael just shrugged.   
  
"Alright, whatever you say dude. We should probably get going, though."  
  
That startled Ray a little. Go where? He searched his memory for any hint before giving up and instead asking, "Where?"  
  
"Well everyone else has to know you're fine." Ray wouldn't go that far. "Plus Ryan wants to ask you a few questions and I'm sure all the others do, too. Plus I'm fucking hungry."   
  
He nodded despite his misgivings and followed Michael outside. He didn't really want to talk to everyone. He wasn't even positive he knew what Michael meant when he said everyone. He followed him anyways, though. He figured he would have to face them eventually. He could handle it. He was still shaky, but he was getting better.  
  
Michael walked towards the giant monolith, a structure that looked much more impressive when it wasn't cut off halfway by a ceiling of nether rack. Honestly, the entire city looked more impressive when it wasn't half on fire and made of dark, smudged shades of red, grey, and brown. It seemed more like home then the Nether version of it ever did. It was more _alive_ than it was in the Nether. There was only one problem.   
  
He pointed to a house that wasn't there in the Nether. It looked much more complicated and well thought out then any of the other houses, complete with a small garden and a sunroof. It was the house he had been staying in since he had gotten to the Overworld version of the city. "Wasn't that my house?"  
  
Michael didn't reply for a while, telling him the answer was yes. What he said, though, was, "... no."   
  
"Mhmm," Ray hummed as they entered the building he guessed must be someone’s house, he just couldn’t remember who exactly it belonged to. It was mostly empty, torches lining the walls and the floor almost every foot in an attempt to illuminate it. It mostly worked, though the ceiling was in shadows, making it impossible to tell where it stopped or if something was up there. It smelled strangely like saltwater inside.   
  
To the left of the door there was a table set up where a group of people were eating and talking loudly. They all seemed familiar, and trying hard enough he could name all of them. That was about where his shattered memories ended, though, so he just sat down in between Michael and Ryan and waited for other people to talk to him first. 

The bearded one - Jack, he remembered - was the first one to actually talk to him directly. It took a while, and in the meantime he was happy enough just to listen as everyone else talked. Eventually, though, he did address Ray directly, startling him a little when he said, "I'm glad you're back, Ray." It was quiet and a passing comment, but it made him feel strangely warm inside. The cup that he was holding in his hands started to steam and he felt his face heat up as well, only making it worse. Ryan noticed, snatching the cup from his hands. 

"Hey!" Ray shouted indignantly, reaching for it only to be waved away by Ryan. 

"How did you do that?" Ryan asked, and Ray was struck for a moment. "We've established that you can use some form of fire magic, but it's not controlled by you, at least not very well, and it's not natural. I can tell." 

"I - what?" 

"What happened when you were gone, Ray?" Ryan asked, and Ray shrunk from the analyzing gaze that was being sent his way and the eyes of everyone else now on him, all other conversation gone. He fidgeted, pulling his sleeves farther down his arm, pulling it over his hands and balling the fabric in his fists. It scared him when Ryan reached out and grabbed his arm, gently but still suddenly, and with a yelp his arm burst into flames as he pulled it away from Ryan. 

He patted down his arm hurriedly, extinguishing the flames quickly. His eyes darted to everyone watching, taking in their shocked expressions. There was even a bit of fear and it hurt, just a little bit. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, praying the pit in his stomach would go away.

"Ray," Michael said slowly, moving his hand in broad motions to make it clear he was going to lay it on his shoulder. "What happened while you were gone?" 

Ray gulped, looking down at his arm. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to think about it, but even so he felt himself look down at his arms. With shaking hands he pulled the sleeves up and stuck his arms out so everyone could see. There were sharp intakes of breath from everyone, the looks of fear quickly turning into ones of concern. His arms were covered in burns of all shapes and shades, dotting them here and there, discoloring some larger areas. There were thin cuts and long cuts, scars that were so deep they disrupted the normally smooth skin.

"Oh my God," he heard Geoff mutter quietly. There was deathly silence for a while, too deep and worried to be disrupted by anyone but the cause of it. 

Ray took a deep breath, preparing himself for all the talking he would have to do. 

"There was a Mage. He... liked to... experiment on people." Ray winced as the bad memories were brought to the surface. He swallowed, hard, ignoring the pain in his stomach and continued talking. He was going to get through this. "I was alone, exploring, and he... well, one night I woke up chained to a wall. I stayed there a while, but eventually he decided to..." He squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath.

"To what, Ray?" Ryan prompted gently. 

"To, well, experiment." He swallowed again. "On me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter might be a little late because, as of right now, it's about 2.4k words and it might take a while to edit. It's going to all be a flashback, though, so look forward to that.


	9. A Flashback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... some answers in this chapter. With it, though, I'm going to put some warnings up and if you want me to include more I will go back and edit this chapter note. If you get uncomfortable/triggered easily I suggest you proceed with caution.  
> Warnings: mentions of torture, human experimentation, and not really violence? but I'm going to still add it

He woke up in what must have been a cell, damp stone walls and iron bars closing around him. It took him a minute to actually process everything, confused and disorientated. The last thing he remembered he had been camping out in the fields, about a day’s walk away from the nearest village. He yanked his hands, finding them chained to the wall. The chain was long but the cuffs around his wrists hurt so he didn't pull much. 

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," someone said, and Ray started. His eyes tried to find the source, struggling against the gloom that was prevalent in the cell. "Sorry," the same voice said. "Didn't mean to scare you." 

He squinted, trying to see through the dim light. He could make out a face, a person, chained and cuffed like he was. He couldn’t see much, but he could tell that there was something strange about them. They looked tired as they leaned their head against the wall. 

He figured introductions were as good a way as any to start. "Yo, I'm Ray." 

The person snickered, saying, "You seem pretty calm for someone who just woke up chained to a wall." Ray shrugged.  

"I try my best."

"Well I'm Lindsay," she introduced, sticking a hand out. Ray looked at it curiously. The nails were weirdly blackened and long, almost like claws. The farther up her arm he looked the more feathers seemed to grow out of her skin, especially around the elbow. He must have been looking too long because she said, "Hey!" very loudly and indignantly. "It's rude to stare." 

"Sorry," Ray said, and took her hand. Afterward he stood up and went to sit by her, glad that the chains didn’t deter him too much, almost getting whacked in the face with what appeared to be a wing. Attached to Lindsay. Huh. "So... where am I?" 

"You're in hell," she said in all seriousness. "Sorry, but I can't sugar coat it. I don't want you to go in not knowing what to expect." 

Ray nodded. He was glad for her brutal honesty, even if he wasn’t comforted by it. "What's with the wings?" 

Lindsay winced and her wings folded closer to her body, almost protectively. He suddenly felt bad for bringing them up. "The Mage likes to... experiment." 

"The Mage?" Ray asked, biting back the urge to say experiment? 

"Yeah. I don't know what his real name is. I dunno if he knows either, but that's what everyone calls him. He's an extremely powerful magic user. He captures animals and people like they're the same thing and... well," she gestured to her wings. 

"He did that to you?" Ray asked, tentatively reaching a hand out to touch them. Lindsay didn't pull away, but she did stiffen. They were soft, warm, undeniably alive. "Why? How?"

She shrugged. "Now sure why. I can't even begin to guess how. He calls me a Phoenix, and-" she bit her tongue, looking sick to her stomach. 

"And what?" Ray pressed, ignoring the obvious hints Lindsay was dropping that she wanted to stop talking about this.

The calm and collected look that Ray had gotten used to seeing her in crumbled and she looked like she wanted to cry. He wasn’t sure how to handle it, so he just sat back and listened as she explained. "I- it was a few days ago, but I woke up and- and I couldn't remember my own name for a while." 

Ray felt a spark of fear at that, and felt guilty that it wasn't for Lindsay, but for himself. Wherever he was it suddenly hit him that he wasn't going to get out of it in one piece. He wasn't going to get out of it unchanged, and no one was coming to rescue him because of the simple fact that almost no one knew where he was. Sure, Michael had a vague idea of the location but he thought he was safe, or as safe as you can be while exploring new territory. 

There was no one coming to rescue him so he would have to get out. Or, barring that, he had to survive. 

Ray sat next to Lindsay, gently pressing himself into her side, wrapping an arm around her as well as he could. She needed comfort and he could at least give her that. He heard the quiet hiccupping from her, the crying that she was trying desperately to hold in. "Hey, want to hear a story?"

She stilled for a second, the hiccups quieting. She whispered, in a thick, broken voice, "Yeah." 

"There were once two idiots. Actually, there were a lot more than just two, but let's focus on those two for now. Their names were Gavin and Geoff, and they wanted to build a city." 

They stayed like that for a while, Ray talking and Lindsay listening. It almost made them both forget where they were. Almost. 

-.-

He hadn’t caused much trouble since the first few days, discovering that whoever this Mage was didn’t take kindly to prisoners slipping out of their bonds and down a hallway undetected. He had been caught almost immediately, shoved into something smaller than the cell he had first woken up in, something that vaguely resembled a cage. It was a while before he found himself in a proper cell again, and despite himself he couldn’t help but feel glad that he wasn’t in the cramped cage anymore.

It didn't take long for Ray to get wrenched out of the cell, dragged down a hallway, and tied to a table after that, though. He didn't see who did it as he was still half-asleep, but his heart hammered in his chest as he looked around the room he was now in, taking in the cold metal under him and the bare brick walls surrounding him, illuminated by torches placed sparingly across the walls. 

He tested the restraints, disappointed that they didn't give at all. He froze a bit when he heard someone moving around somewhere in the room. "I wouldn't recommend trying to escape. You won't get very far." The voice was chilling, unimaginably cold and terrifying, twisting down into his chest like some kind of snake. He hated hearing it. He wished desperately that his hands were free so he could shove cotton in his ears and never have to hear him talk again.

Instead of letting that show, though, he just asked, "Are you the Mage, then?" in a toneless, almost uncaring voice. There was a laugh, and it sounded worse than the words. 

"Yes, I am the Mage." He stepped in front of Ray, all black cloaks and folded fabric, his face hidden in shadows. He was holding something in his hand, though for the life of him he couldn't tell what it was. Seeing the man responsible for hurting Lindsay so much, the man that treated people like animals, the man that was undeniably going to do the same thing to him as he did to everyone else he had seen in his short time there, made him sick to his stomach. He didn’t let it show, though. "Do you know what I'm going to do to you?"

"Sure,” he said dully, almost bored. “You're going to hurt me. Experiment on me. See what you can do to me and how much of it I can survive." His voice was steady, he noted with approval. He was determined not to give this sicko the satisfaction of hearing him scared. 

"And that doesn't scare you?"

"It terrifies me," Ray replied simply, sensing the disappointment the Mage was giving off from not receiving a satisfactory answer. He was obviously used to begging or screaming or crying or, if any of those failed, dead, shocked silence.  

"Hmmm... let's see if we can change that." 

The next few seconds - maybe they were minutes, or hours. Hell, they could have been days, he had no idea - were spent in intense pain as something hot was pressed against his face, something hot and metal and _burning_. He couldn't really process what was happening as the heat spread from his cheek to the rest of his face, twisting down. into his chest and his fingers and toes and eventually his entire body felt like it was on fire. He heard someone screaming as his throat struggled to make noises to express the pain he was in. 

In an instant it was gone and he couldn't open his eyes, he couldn't move because he was so tired. The stings on his arms, his face, everywhere, didn't process. He just breathed, trying to collect himself and calm down, trying to force the pain, the fear, away from him but it didn't work. Instead he tried to focus on his friends, of the past and the adventures he'd had with them, the arguments and the laughs, anything that could take him away from this place. 

When he finally managed to open his eyes again he saw the Mage and even though he couldn't see his eyes he knew he was staring at him. "Thanks for that, asshole," Ray spit, showing nothing but contempt for the man standing in front of him. He got the sense that too long had passed, but he couldn’t be sure, with his sense of time marred beyond recognition.

"Hmmm," the Mage hummed. "You've reacted well to the fire. Better than the Phoenix did, which is impressive. Minimal burns... I think it will work for you." Ray bit his tongue, resisting the urge to ask him if he meant Lindsay when he said the Phoenix, resisting the urge to ask him what the hell he was doing to him. He couldn’t bring himself to talk, mostly because he was just too tired, but also because he didn’t want the Mage to hear his cracked and broken voice. He closed his eyes tightly and mentally prepared himself for whatever was going to come next.

Soon enough the fire was back, this time deeper than before. He felt like his whole body was changing, bending to whatever magic the Mage was using. For a split second suspended in time it was just pain, he was no one, there was nothing past the red in front of his eyes, the screaming in his ears. He tried to find his happy memories again, the things that had saved him last time, but he could only catch snippets, he couldn't focus even after the fire was gone. 

He gasped for breath, not really processing being dragged back to a cell and thrown into it. He laid there, relishing in the fact that the stone beneath him was cool and smooth. Slowly, very slowly, he pieced himself back together, reminding himself of who he was, reminding himself that he couldn’t give up just yet. He sat up shakily, looking around and wondering if Lindsay was still there.  

He didn't see her, his eyes instead landing on someone in the corner, knees pulled up to her chest and arms over her head like she was waiting for the world to come crashing down around her. Honestly, he could relate. Ray slowly inched towards her and sat beside her, asking softly, "Are you alright?"

She jerked up and looked at him, scared. He didn’t have the energy to respond with much more than a slightly bemused look on his face. He took in her appearance, noting that her eyes were a strange shade of purple that seemed to glow in the dim light, seeing the dark hair falling into her face. She swallowed when she realized he wasn't going to hurt him and said quietly, "No."

"Why not?" He knew why. He just figured it was better to let her talk. 

"I d-don't want to be here. I want to go home." She looked like she was about to break down crying. 

"Where's home?" 

She actually did start crying at that question, small hiccups and shining eyes. It was restrained, as if she was afraid to show weakness, and if she was anything like Ray that was probably exactly what it was. "I- I don't k-know. I c-can't remember." 

"What's your name?" Ray asked gently, calmly. 

"T-Tina," she said in a tiny voice. 

"Well, Tina, I'm Ray. I would love to say that you're safe, that you don't have to worry, but I'm in as much trouble as you are. All I can offer is company."

They sat there for a while in silence, Ray almost falling asleep for a few minutes before a brief flash of memory seared through his mind, jerking him awake. Tina must have noticed because she took a deep breath and asked, "What did he do to you?"

The question struck Ray and he couldn't find an answer. "I actually have no idea,” he said honestly. He felt oddly distanced from the whole thing, as if it had happened to someone else. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, though. “There was a lot of fire." He winced as the memory suddenly flared up again, blocking out everything as it replayed before disappearing like it had never happened. 

She looked at him, really looked at him for the first time, and Ray gulped under her intense scrutiny. She nodded. "I thought so." She seemed to collect herself before saying, "The Mage is very interested in monsters, specifically giving humans the qualities of monsters. For me he used an enderman. For you he used a blaze." 

"A blaze? Why?"

She shrugged. "Fuck if I know. He's a weirdo."

"Tell me about it," Ray muttered, leaning back and closing his eyes. 

-.-

He was there for way too long. Sometimes he was thrown into a cell with Lindsay, sometimes Tina, once some dude named Jeremy who wouldn’t really respond to his attempts at conversation which had managed to keep him mostly sane in the days locked away. Every so often - there was no pattern to it - he would be roughly dragged out and thrown into the same room as before with the same table and the same fire as before. 

"I will break you," the Mage said once, "And then I will use you."

Ray had no idea what that meant but it sounded threatening and vaguely sexual. He doubted the Mage meant it that way, though.  

One day the Mage held something in front of his face, something that seemed to suck in the light around him, and he leaned away from it, disliking the feeling it was giving off. He disliked the feeling of most things that were spread out around what Ray had started referring to as his lab. "Could you get that the fuck away from me?" He asked, wincing at the cracking and straining his voice had started to do lately. 

"Hmmm," the Mage hummed and Ray wanted to smack him in his stupid fucking face. There were a few more glowing sticks poked at him, none of which did anything. "Interesting," the Mage said in a way that someone might say "infuriating." He couldn’t help but feel proud at that.

Nothing much happened for what seemed like a long time, until the day the Mage sat in front of him, almost like they were friends. They definitely were _not_ friends. "Did you know," he started slowly, "That I can't control you? You are intensely resistant to any mind magic I have at my disposal. Do you have any idea why that would be?"

"Not really," Ray rolled his eyes, "Maybe you're just not as good as you think you are." 

"What if I took your memories? Would that make it easier?" He mused out loud, and Ray felt the blood drain from his face. For the longest time he had been depending on his memories of a life outside this hellhole to get him through the worst of... well, everything. He'd told countless stories to Tina and Lindsay, to calm them down as much as to calm himself down. He bit his tongue because if he said anything it would just push him to do it. He would probably do it anyways, and that scared him deeply. 

The question was left hanging for a few days, and with every day the pit in his stomach got bigger and bigger. He spent more and more time talking to Tina and Lindsay, as if he was trying to dump his whole life story on them, to make it so even if the Mage did go through with taking his memories they wouldn’t be totally lost. It helped a little, but not enough to calm him down when the day finally came, like he knew it would deep down, even if he had tried to ignore it.

The Mage explained that because he was so resistant to mind magic he had to resort to soul magic, something that had the same effect, just with a different way of going about it. When it happened it hurt, sure, but it wasn't like he remembered it. For a while he didn't remember much of anything before the cells came back, slowly pieced together in dark pictures that didn't make much sense. That was a while, though. He hadn't even got those memories back fully when he woke up back at the city, but that wasn't for a while, and for now he found himself on the floor of a cell with and empty head and an aching body. 

Something moved in the corner of the room and he scrambled to get away from it, wedging himself in a corner and covering his head with his hands. Someone stood up and walked over to him, saying in a tiny voice, "Ray?"

He didn't move. He wasn't sure he knew where he was, or what was happening. It was all very confusing and he didn't feel like sifting through the shattered remnants of memory right now. The person sat next to him. 

"Are you alright?" He peeked at the person, seeing a girl with glowing purple eyes and dark hair. 

He stared at her for a while before whispering, "You're very pretty." She blushed. 

"S-shut up, Ray." When he didn't react she looked at him, concerned, before she seemed to understand. "You don't remember."

"Uh... no." 

"I'm... I'm sorry, Ray."

"For what?" he asked, confused. 

"That this happened to you. I'm sorry. You seem like a nice person."

He shrugged, not sure how to respond to her. They didn't talk anymore, and that was the last he saw of her because the next day he was declared "useless" and a "failure" by the Mage, though he didn't remember much of it, and thrown through a portal and left to die in the fires of the Nether.


	10. Bad Ideas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this story has gotten over a thousand hits??? Thanks so much guys. Have a kinda early chapter as a thanks. Hope you're all ready for what's coming ;)

He finished his story – or, at least, what he remembered of it - and sat back, hoping no one would... overreact. Actually, not overreacting would probably be worse, considering they had just found out that their friend had been sent through hell and back. Everyone looked sort of scared, stricken, or just downright horrified. Michael was the first to recover, and he did what he did best. He looked _angry_. Really, truly angry. The kind of anger that you could practically see burning behind his eyes. 

"What. The. Actual. Fuck." He said slowly, grinding his teeth together to keep from shouting. Despite that his voice was rapidly increasing in volume. "Are you serious, Ray? Why didn't you tell us? Holy shit, I'm going to fucking kill that guy. I can't believe a person could do something like that to another person." He continued on like that for a long time while everyone else gathered their thoughts. 

"I... I think I might know who you were captured by, Ray," Ryan said after a while of Michael saying everything everyone else wanted to say. Something in Ryan’s voice was strange, though. It was something akin to reminiscent, though not in a good way. It was still dripping with contempt, as much if not more so then Michael’s had been.

"Good! We can go to the fucker’s house and kill him in his sleep," Michael hissed, practically spitting fire. It was the most intense, focused anger Ray had ever seen, and even if he couldn't remember much he could still appreciate the murderous look in Michael's eyes. 

"It might not be that simple," Ryan said slowly, not willing to become the subject of Michael's anger, but again using the same tone as before. It was like he knew more than he was letting on, and since it was Ryan he probably did.

"Like hell it isn't! Where is he? I'll kill him myself."

"He... I'm not sure. We can assume he's somewhere in the plains, since that was where Ray said he was going in his last letter," Ryan said slowly, in a way that implied that Ray wasn't sitting next to him. He wasn't quite sure how to interpret it, except with the spark of anger that disappeared quickly. "If you're talking about who I think you're talking about, Ray, and if you're dead set on finding the bastard then we can't do it without planning and you can't do it alone. We have to work together. Get as many people as possible. Hell, if Caleb makes a surprise visit sometime in the next few days we'll bring him along." 

Michael shook his head. Ray was confused. How was Ryan so certain about all that he was saying? "A few days? You're just going to sit on your ass for a few days?" He stood up, the bench he was sitting on scraping on the ground loudly. "You can wait for as long as you want. I'm going."

"Michael-" Ryan started, only to be cut off. 

"No, Ryan. I don't care what you're going to say. This fucker hurt Ray. I'm not letting that slide." 

With that he left, leaving the rest of them in silence. Ray tried to gather his thoughts, confused but also strangely delighted that Michael cared about him so much. He was mostly worried, though. Michael, not matter how strong or determined he might be, could not go up against a mage alone, much less the specific mage they were talking about.

It wasn’t long before everyone else started to get up and leave, the first after Michael was Ryan, saying, "I'm going to make a map." 

Gavin slid into the seat next to Ray, saying, "Hey, you want to go talk to Michael? He needs someone to pull his head outta his ass or at least to make sure he doesn't bloody get himself killed." 

Ray nodded and followed Gavin outside, pausing momentarily to take in just how bright the sun was, casting everything in bright hues that almost hurt his eyes after the muted colors of the Nether. It made him miss home, even though he was standing in a place that had been his home for so long. It was more of a yearning for a place that didn’t exist anymore. Or maybe it never did. It was a strange feeling that didn't really go away, it just faded. 

As they neared Michael's house Ray could just barely see inside it. He saw Michael moving around, grabbing things off his wall and shoving things into a bag. Gavin knocked on the door before letting himself in anyways. 

"Michael-" he started, only to be cut off. 

"No! You can't talk me out of this, Gav. I don't give a shit what everyone says. I'm going. I'm not letting something like this slide. It's not just Ray, either. This fucker is capturing people and treating them like animals. He has to be stopped and I don't give a shit if you guys want to sit here on your asses. I'm going." He pulled the bag closed, setting it on his bed before sitting down next to it. He seemed to have just noticed Ray. 

"Look, I'm not saying you shouldn't, I'm just saying that going alone isn't a good idea." 

"Yeah?" Michael muttered. "What are you gonna do about it?"

"I'm going to come with you, you bloody stupid idiot." Michael looked up in surprise. Gavin huffed indignantly. "What? Ray's my friend too, ya know." 

Ray felt as spark of warmth in his chest. It was nice, having people who cared about him so actively. Too bad they were planning a suicide mission that would either get them killed or severely hurt. He couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth, though, and he hated himself a little more for that.

Michael's face seemed to light up at what Gavin had said. "Really? You're coming?"

Gavin rolled his eyes. "You should probably wait for the Gents to get ready, though. Or at the very least for Ryan to make a map to the bloody asshole."

"Gents?" Ray whispered to himself, confused. Gavin must have heard him because he shot Ray a worried glance. 

"What about you, Ray? Are you coming with us?" Michael asked, and though he probably didn't mean to the question lit a fire in his stomach. Under no circumstances did he want to go back there. He didn't want to be there, with the fire eating away at him from the inside out, the dark rooms and the silent nights. His arms were clutched close to his chest, and though he couldn't really focus he could feel the heat coming from them as he shook his head. 

"Woah, woah, calm down, Ray," Gavin said quietly, as if the slightest noise would break him. "You don't have to come if you don't want to." 

He swallowed down the panic at the initial question, instead really thinking about the prospect of going back there. On one hand he was downright terrified of seeing that man again, of being in the same room as him again. Of hearing him talk again. But on the other he knew how he worked, knew the place they were going to well enough to keep them from getting killed. He could help them, make it so that the man that had hurt him wouldn't live to see another day. 

Too bad Ray wasn't the vengeful type. Too bad the scars were too fresh, and even thinking about it made him want to curl up into a ball and never face the world again. "I'm sorry. I can't go back there."

And that was that.


	11. Sneak and Tell

Gavin snuck around the side of Ryan's house, staying in the shadows and making sure no one saw him. If someone did no doubt there would be another argument. No one, not even Ray, though he hadn’t said anything on the subject after their initial conversation, wanted them to go through with their plan but it wasn't like many people were out this late at night so it wasn’t like he was going to be caught anyways. Besides, he knew for a fact Ryan liked to tend to the small, independent farm that he had set up for himself at obscenely late hours. So it made for the perfect opportunity to sneak into his house, usually for pranks. This time it was a bit more serious. 

He closed the door quietly behind him, stepping gingerly over the glass floor that covered the cow Ryan kept in his house. Creepy bastard. 

Gavin found the notes quickly enough, shifting through the papers, feeling for the familiar signature of magic that lingered around Ryan and anything he enchanted. It was a curiously strong thing, something that grew stronger the longer Ryan spent in one place. If one spent enough time around a magic user it became hard not to learn a few, if arbitrary, things, like how nether warts had to be grown on soul sand or how every enchantment table had its own personal magical signature, or how to tell the difference between an enchanted item and a normal one. That was why, when his hands found the map, he knew instantly. 

He pulled it out of the tall stack of papers, feeling the magic thrum through his fingers. He ignored the note stuck on top of it, written in Ryan's messy handwriting, "Put it back, Gavin." He shoved the map into his pocket once he verified it was the right one and looked briefly through the notes on the desk, though he soon gave up, partially because it was a nightmare trying to read Ryan's shorthand and partly because it wasn't anything of interest to him. He had to get out soon, just in case Ryan decided to return early.

He snuck back out the door and into the night, winding his way to Michael's house, jumping at the usual sounds of monsters in the night. He entered it quietly, painfully aware of Ray sleeping in one of Michael's beds. Apparently he didn't like sleeping alone in the new house that they had built in place of his old one. Honestly Gavin didn't blame him. It was too empty in that house. 

Michael stood up immediately as he entered, looking something between excited and anxious. "You got it?"

Gavin pulled the map out triumphantly, showing it to Michael. He looked at it closely, taking in the two markers on it, one of which was of the person holding the map, the other of the destination. The Mage's hideout. Personally, Gavin had no idea how Ryan had managed to make the map so quickly, but he wasn’t complaining. Michael grinned, slinging his pack onto his shoulder. "Alright then," he said with a grin. "Ready to go get this motherfucker?" Gavin nodded.

The plan was to leave at night so everyone else wouldn’t notice until morning, giving them at least a twelve hour head start, at most two days. They weren’t dumb enough to plan to actually storm a mage in their own home but they were dumb enough to plan to sneak in instead. They had figured if they failed the rest of the guys would just come and rescue them, granted they would probably be murdered by Geoff later on but they figured it was worth it if they succeeded.

As they left, Ray stirred in bed, worry settling deep in his chest. What happens if they actually find the Mage? Would they actually defeat him? Kill him? Or would they be captured, just like Ray was? Would they be sent through hell and back because he didn't do anything to stop them? He got up out of bed, not able to sleep now that he had so many doubts, the thoughts making him sick to his stomach. He wasn't making it to Michael and Gavin in time and there was no way he was going back to that place again. Instead he went to the only other person he was really willing to talk to. 

He wandered to Ryan's house, only to find it empty. For some reason he didn't feel discouraged and instead started walking behind his house, eventually stumbling upon a fenced off section of land on which many different ingredients for potions were growing. He wound his way through the watermelons and nether warts, finding Ryan crouched next to a pumpkin that looked sickly compared to all the others. Ray could have sworn that he was talking to them, but he couldn’t be sure.

He crouched down next to him, not responding when Ryan shouted, "Jesus! Ray, when the hell did you get here?"

"Michael and Gavin left," he said instead. He could practically feel the blood drain from Ryan's face. "They took one of your maps."

"I - Ray are you serious? Holy shit," he muttered, leaping up and quickly walking back to his house, shoving something into his pocket as he kept talking to himself. "There's no way they can go up against someone with that much magic at their disposal alone, what fucking idiots. I can't believe they actually went through with it I _told_ them not to."

"Ryan?" Ray said quietly, and even though it wasn't much louder than a breath it still stopped him in his tracks. He turned his whole body physically to face Ray, giving him his undivided attention. He felt a spark of warmth from that, though it disappeared quickly as he asked, "Should I have gone with them? O-or tried harder to stop them?"

Ryan shook his head. "No, you absolutely should not have gone with them. The last thing you need is to go back there. As for trying harder? There was absolutely no chance that you could have kept those idiots from leaving. Once they make up their minds there's no changing it."  

Ryan's words made him feel a bit better, but there was still a slight pang of guilt for leaving Michael and Gavin alone to go along with their suicidal plan. When Ryan made it to his house he said, "Go wake up Jack. And Geoff. We need to get going as soon as possible to catch up or at least rescue those idiots." 

"Go where?" Ray asked, confused. 

"Well three people isn't going to be enough. It would have been a stretch to have five people. We need backup if we're storming a mage in their home." Ryan searched around his house for something, producing his staff from where it had been resting against a wall. "You probably don't remember it, but we're going to the nearest city. It's called Cock Byte, and it's were we're going to get backup and where you're going to stay while we rescue the idiots." 

Ray nodded, secretly grateful that Ryan had so casually implied that there was no way they were dragging him back there, and went to go wake Geoff and Jack.


	12. Traveling

It took them two days to finally set out from the city. In that time Ray kept running through possible scenarios where he could have kept Michael and Gavin from going, scenarios where they end up captured just like he was and put through pain that they shouldn't ever have to endure. It didn't help that Ryan seemed to share his worries, even if he insisted he didn't.

It took those two days to check and double check the maps and make sure everything they would need was packed and ready. In those two days Ray heard more complaining, from Geoff especially, then he’d ever heard from any of them before. Or, at least, from what he remembered.

When they finally set out Ray was kind of hesitant to leave, freezing on the walkway out of the city, his heart pounding and legs refusing to move. It reminded him of what happened the first time he had tried to leave the city in the Nether. He took a deep breath and forced himself to move, though apparently he was visibly shaken because Ryan asked, “Are you alright, Ray?”

He nodded, not able to bring himself to talk. The sick feeling in his stomach eventually faded, but not after a while of walking through the planes and sparse forests. He tried not to let his mind wander, instead just focusing on his feet walking along the faded paths that were almost invisible but he found them anyways.

One night, after walking all day to a place he didn't really remember, they were all getting ready to sleep, a fire burning steadily and Jack sitting a bit away, having taken first watch. Ryan had chosen to sleep closer than Ray thought comfortable to him, though he wasn't complaining. There was a deep thrum of warmth in his chest, and he heard Ryan shift.

"Do you know when you do that?" 

The question startled Ray a little. "Do what?"

"You got really warm all of a sudden." Ray felt his face heat up and it didn't help when Ryan said, "There! You're doing it again." 

Ray pulled the blanket over his face instead of answering. Of course he knew he did it. He wasn't an idiot. That didn't mean he could control it, though. It wasn’t something that he could consciously activate or even regulate. It seemed to be closely linked to whatever he was feeling, whether it was something positive or not.

There were some conversations throughout the day, though most of them weren’t interesting or just too hard to follow so Ray just zoned out, trying not to think about the Mage too much. He just looked at his shoes, scraping against the hard and dry earth. He felt someone yank him back and he finally looked up, seeing a village laid out in front of him. It felt vaguely familiar, less so then how Achievement City felt the first time he had seen it again. There was still the unmistakable feeling that he should know this place. He recalled Ryan calling it Cock Byte. That sounded about right. 

The buildings were arranged in a way that made it feel more like a village and less like a collection of buildings coordinated around a central point. Most of them were low, squat buildings made of wood or sandstone, some walls missing chunks from endermen and what looked like a smithy smoking in one corner of the buildings. There were lanterns hung up on tall poles that weren't burning, but of course that was because it wasn't night yet, the sun still high in the sky.

Carts lined paved roads that were cracked in some places, weeds growing in-between the stones. There weren’t many people out, but there were a few. They walked down the road, Ray catching sight of a few children ducking and hiding behind buildings. He could hear people murmuring, seeing a group of people talking around a fountain, but he couldn’t quite tell what they were saying. Paranoia made him think they were talking about him, but he knew that was unlikely. 

Ray swallowed and kept close to Ryan, trying to ignore the stares they were getting. It felt like there were too many eyes on him, in alleys and shadows that he couldn’t see but could feel. It felt like those days in the cell, knowing there were others there, but not knowing where, not knowing who they were or what was happening to them. He shook his head violently, pushing the images out of his head, forcing himself to not think about it.

It worked, for the most part, until someone shouted at him, "Hey! Ray!" He flinched violently at the unfamiliar voice, eyes landing on a man with huge bags under his eyes, a worn tunic falling over his shoulders lazily, his hair messy and unkempt, almost like Gavin’s. He felt familiar, but unlike with Ryan and everyone else he couldn't for the life of him remember this man's name. 

He shifted uneasily under his gaze and Ryan must have noticed, because he leaned down and whispered, "Joel." into his ear. That sounded right. 

He forced himself to face the man, pushing a smile onto his face that probably looked crushingly fake. "Hi, Joel."

He stopped at that, cocking his head, confused. Or maybe he was concerned. Ray just really, really didn’t want to deal with this right now. "Ray? Are you alright?" 

"Okaaaay," Geoff interrupted, dragging Ray away and he was grateful for it. He faced Joel instead, earning another confused look from the man. "Look, Joel, there's some shit going on that we have to explain, but we're going to do it at Burnie's house. Get Gus and Hullum and anyone who's combat able or magically gifted and meet us there." 

"Alright," Joel said slowly, turning reluctantly and going to do what Geoff had asked of him. He did look behind him again, trying to meet Ray’s eyes. He just ducked behind Ryan, pretending not to see. He felt like an asshole, but honestly at this point he didn’t want to deal with people who knew him that he couldn’t remember.

As Joel left Ray sighed heavily. This was not going to get any easier. 


	13. The Guards

They had walked for a few days after stopping at Cock Byte to resupply, avoiding most questions and dispensing minimal formalities. They didn’t want someone to try to stop them, but Gavin was almost certain Burnie had almost hauled them to his house for an intense round of interrogation. He hadn’t, though, just asked where everyone else was. He had responded with, “Back at the city, being lazy bastards.”

The map guided them the whole way, and Gavin was thankful Ryan was so skilled in magic because if it had failed they would have been hopelessly lost. The sparse forests and swamps they passed didn’t register as on any other maps he was aware of. But, then again, he didn’t usually travel out this far. It was lonely and empty, with nothing but the familiar sounds of monsters to let them know there were still things living around them.

When they finally got to their destination it was not what they expected. 

"What the hell?" Gavin muttered, taking in the rundown homes and burnt buildings. Everything was overgrown with weeds, the windows shattered and torches all over that had long been burnt out. He checked the map again, verifying that yes, this was the right place. He could see smoke rising from a few of the chimneys that were still standing and he didn’t want to know where the smoke was coming from. "What happened to this place?" he muttered, putting the map away and trying to squash the uneasy feeling he was getting. 

"I don't know, Gav," Michael whispered, and started walking towards the buildings. He saw something in the corner of his eye, though, and with a squawk Gavin reached out and yanked him into cover behind a crumbling wall as two shadowy figures made themselves known. Michael peeked around the wall silently, Gavin following his lead. 

"Did you hear that?" one asked in a strangely dull voice. This one was tall, thin with long hair that went down past his chin. He wore a strange white mask with red markings on it, a ragged and torn red cloak falling over his shoulders. Gavin sucked in a breath when the man lifted an arm, knocking away the cloth to reveal that it was completely devoid of flesh, small pockets of muscle keeping it together, or maybe it was the just barely perceptible shimmer around the limb. 

"Hear what?" the other asked, shorter with hair cut close to his scalp, his skin a sickly green, in some places seemingly falling off. He wore a torn white shirt that showed even more green skin. Gavin was reminded of what Ray had said before, about how the Mage liked to experiment. It looked like they had found the hideout after all. 

"I don't know, it sounded like a bird or something," the tall one said, and Gavin turned to Michael, signaling him to follow. They snuck through the run down buildings, finding a mostly standing watchtower that they holed up in and began to plan. 

"So you get captured-" Michael begin, Gavin interrupting him with an indignant squawk.

"Why do I get captured? You'd do more good near the bastard than I would. I can't even wield a sword all that well. You go in." Michael rolled his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh that sounded a bit too theatrical to be sincere.  

"Fine, _I'll_ get captured. Happy, asshole?" Gavin just beamed at him, earning him a slap in the face. Not hard, but enough to get Michael's annoyance across. 

"Aww, Michael, why'd you do that?" Gavin pouted. 

"Because you're being a cheeky bastard," he replied, making sure to throw on an obviously fake accent along with it. 

Gavin giggled a little, though there was still an impending sense of doom hanging over both of them. If this went wrong it was very possible they would end up like the shaking mess that was now Ray. "So you get captured, cause some damage to the Mage, and I get you out."

Michael nodded. "Yeah, and try to rescue as many people as you can on the way." 

With that they separated, Gavin scaling a building and hiding on the roof, careful to avoid the areas that looked like they would cave in at any moment, looking out over the cracked and overgrown walkway that the two guards were resolutely walking down. It wasn't long before Gavin caught sight of Michael walking through the buildings, making a horrendous amount of noise as he rounded a corner. Gavin's eyes swung back to where the two guards had been, finding nothing but an empty walkway. His heart leapt into his throat and he stood up slightly, vaulting from one rooftop to another silently, trying to find where the guards had gone. He sucked in a breath as his foot punched through the roof and he pulled it out as quickly as he could, letting out a huff of annoyance when he saw that his pant leg had been ripped.

His head shot up as he heard a barely audible _thump_ , and he quickly turned and snuck in the direction he had heard it come from. He finally found the guards standing over the now unconscious form of Michael. He bit his tongue to keep from yelling.

"What do you think he's doing here?" The small one asked. 

"Another explorer, probably. Like the last one." A small spark of anger lit itself in Gavin's stomach at that. They were talking about Ray. He must have made some kind of noise because the tall one's head swung his way, a loud "Hey!" escaping his lips. 

Gavin, still fueled by the same fire as before, quickly drew his bow, nocking an arrow and firing it towards the tall one's mask, effectively knocking it off. He made to run away, stopping when he didn't hear any sounds of pursuit. He glanced behind him, just barely catching sight of the tall one running as fast as humanly possible out of the abandoned village. Confused, Gavin decided to follow, figuring that Michael could wait a bit before getting rescued.


	14. An Important Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't update yesterday. I've been a bit busy with a lot of thing as well as being hit with minor writer's block, so the next chapter won't come out for a few days but hopefully by that time I'll have finished the whole fic and I can go back to my regular posting schedule.

"So... you're saying you don't remember... anything?" Joel asked slowly, one of the many people present in the meeting hall that also happened to double as Burnie's home. Along with the man himself, Hullum, Gus, and Joel there were some other people sitting around the room, none of which Ray really recognized. The only reason he could name the ones he could was because Geoff had told him beforehand. Honestly, most of them looked either shocked, angry, or apathetic. He supposed not everyone could care.

"Not really, no," Ray said, swinging his legs while sitting on the raised platform that made up some kind of makeshift stage. His head was resting in his hand, a headache beginning to form from having to tell his story again. To be fair, though, he had skimmed through some of the worse details, only giving the people gathered the necessary information for what Geoff was about to rally them all into doing. He wasn’t ready for the adventure of telling the whole, unedited story quite yet.

"So you don't know who I am?" Joel asked slowly, as if Ray was stupid and somehow forgot how to speak English. He clenched his fists, feeling a flare of groundless anger that may have been annoyance, and he almost instantly regretted because he saw how everyone in the room either sucked in a breath or scooted further away from him. He shoved hit fists into his lap, forcing the flames to die down. 

"I know you're Joel, I know I should know you, but no, not really." Joel seemed to deflate at that. Ray honestly didn't care. He just wanted to sleep and never have to get up again. Talking with this many eyes on him was slowly sapping what little energy he had left. 

"So what's this all about, Geoff?" Burnie asked, receiving murmurs of agreement from most of the people seated in the room. They hadn’t really explained what everyone was doing there yet.

"Well, two idiots whom will not be named-"

"It's Michael and Gavin." 

"Ryan! Shut up!" Geoff shouted, his voice cracking and Ryan just snickering in the background. "Michael and Gavin went to fight the Mage alone, we need manpower to get them out again."

There were shocked murmurs, everyone else taking the news a bit harder than they had. Granted, they'd had two days for the reality to fully sink in so it wasn't like they were on an even playing field. "So anyone willing to storm a mage's hideout?" Ryan asked in a joking tone, though everyone knew this was a serious matter. 

Most people in the room volunteered, and soon enough Ray was free to wander the village as the "grown-ups talked," as Geoff had so kindly put it. The sun wasn't quite setting just yet, so he wandered back to where he had seen the fountain earlier, finding it crowded, though most of the people there were children. They were playing some game that involved sticks and a small bouncing ball. The only other people there was a group of woman talking quietly to each other, and Ray assumed they were the children's parents. 

Honestly, Ray had had enough of adults for one day and sat down next to one of the kids. It didn't take long for them to notice him, one of the kids standing up and pointing an accusatory finger at him. "And who are you? This is our private meeting, you're not allowed here!"

Ray raised an eyebrow at the girl. She was short, a red dress hanging off her small form, choppy black hair framing her face. "Yeah? Well, how do I get into this private meeting? I think I'm qualified."

The girl squinted at him before ducking back and whispering to her friends. She turned back and said, "You need a semblance!" she proclaimed very matter of factly. 

"And what, exactly, is a semblance?" Ray asked, deciding to humor the girl. He was having too much fun, anyways, fighting the grin that was threatening to split his face apart. 

"It's what makes you special!"                                                     

"A power," a small boy in a baggy shirt and dirty blonde hair added from the back of the group, glancing over at a taller girl with red hair pulled into a ponytail for verification. She grinned and nodded back at him.

"Hmmm... and what would your semblance be?" he asked the girl. 

"I can run super fast!" she said, almost daring him to disagree with her. Ray nodded sagely. 

"Ah, then I think I might qualify after all."

The girl's eyes widened briefly before narrowing in suspicion. "Ok, but you have to prove it, first! Then we might let you join." 

Ray nodded again, laying his hands in front of him, carefully bringing up any good memories he could, letting the fire in his stomach burn, and soon enough he heard delighted gasps from the children in front of him. The flames were small and a warm orange, heating up the faces of the children. Ray carefully focused on forming a small sphere in his hands, controlling the fire that for the most part he had ignored and pretended that it didn't exist. It was a nice change, not having people respond negatively to his fire.

"Woah..." the girl said in awe. She shook herself out of it, crossing her arms and saying, "Alright, you qualify." 

“Hey… I can do that too,” a girl with long blonde hair muttered dejectedly.

A girl with black hair patted her on the arm, responding with, “Yeah, but your fire isn’t as strong, Yang.”

He spent longer then was probably necessary sitting there, listening to them talk, letting himself forget what happened in the past and reveling in the present for as long as he could, only leaving when the sun went down to find where Jack, Geoff, and Ryan had gone. It was nice, and Ray felt better from the experience.

Ray found himself in Burnie’s house as Joel was saying, slightly suspiciously, “You know an awful lot about this guy. The Mage, you said. How?”

Ryan winced, taking a deep breath and preparing to start explaining. Ray felt his heart jump because Joel had a point. How did he know so much? “We used to be classmates…”


	15. Another Flashback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo guess who's back from that short hiatus? (hint: it's me) Sorry that it's kinda... I don't know? Rushed? I really didn't want to write this chapter and it's one of the main reasons I hit writer's block but here it is. Enjoy!

He stood as still as he could, his heart hammering in his chest. The man in front of him looked him over with a critical eye, and Ryan couldn’t help but feel like he could see into his soul, like he knew everything about him even if they had never said a word to each other. He supposed that was why he was as famous as a magic tutor as he was. He certainly looked and played the part well.

Ryan let out a huge sigh as the man walked to the next person in line, though he still couldn’t help but wonder if the last look he had received meant he passed or failed. It wasn’t a new feeling, but the time spent getting this far didn’t magically make the nervous fluttering in his stomach go away.

He supposed if he couldn’t get an apprenticeship with him he could try somewhere less prestigious, but this was his first choice and he didn’t want to waste it because the man’s first impression of him didn’t meet his standards.

He glanced next to him, catching sight of a man probably the same age as he was, glowering at nothing and giving off a wholly unpleasant vibe. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there but at the same time if he didn’t then what would he be doing there in the first place? It was enough of a pain to pass the entry exam, much less get to where they were.

He shrugged and pushed the strange man out of his mind as Edgar, the mage that he hoped would take him on as an apprentice, finished looking over all the possible candidates. Ryan waited, knees weak and palms sweaty, and he didn’t even realize he had been holding in his breath when the man declared the ones who were to become his apprentices. He was one of them.

-.-

It was a long process, relearning things he thought he already knew, only for them to be declared “wrong.” The other apprentices gradually dropped off one by one, not up to the task, either their bodies or their minds not able to put up with the strain of using magic so frequently and so rigorously. Their teacher instructed them to use magic as much as possible, even in the most mundane things. He said there would be a time later when they would use their hands and function as most people did, but it was a necessary exercise to get them used to using magic so often.

Ryan figured that after this was all over some of the apprentices wouldn’t break the habit of using magic for everything.

He learned potion making, enchanting, combat magic and defensive magic. He learned histories and sciences and terms that helped categorize everything in his mind. He learned things he never would have figured out on his own, took leaps that seemed much smaller when there was someone to help him along that knew what was going to come out of it.

Through the years the only person to really match Ryan’s enthusiasm was the same man as before, the one with dark clothes that didn’t talk much and glared a lot and didn’t show many emotions besides distain. Ryan didn’t talk to him past what he needed to, but he learned that his name was Flynt, that he had been kicked out of many other apprenticeships because of his questionable morals, something Ryan was always confused about. He might have been weird, but he hadn’t done anything morally questionable, at least, not that Ryan had seen.

It wasn’t until he interrupted Edgar in a lesson about auras that Ryan finally understood.

“But could you change it?” Flynt asked, and everyone else present in the room grew deathly silent.

“Excuse me?” Edgar asked in the same slow, calm, borderline bored voice he always used. “Could you change what?”

“An aura.”

That was the first time Ryan had seen his teacher anything less than calm and collected. He quickly recovered, though, but he could still see the concern behind Edgar’s eyes. “In theory, yes. You could. However, this is not seen as morally acceptable, as-“

“But why is it not morally acceptable?”

“Because for something to have an aura it must be alive and sentient. To change one’s aura would mean inflicting great pain on them, pain that does not go away even after the change is complete. They would live in constant pain, though more often than not it isn’t physical. An aura always seeks to be what it was born as, and to change that would not only be playing god, but going against the will of nature itself.”

The man rolled his eyes, and Ryan furrowed his eyebrows. He didn’t like where this conversation was going. “Yeah, yeah, keep spouting poetry. I don’t really care.” He leaned forward, close to Edgar, a small smile playing across his lips. “I just want to know. Have you ever tried it?” Edgar was silent for a few heartbeats, but even that seemed like an eternity. “HA! So you have!”

Edgar glowered at the man, and even though it wasn’t directed at him Ryan still shivered. A gust of wind blew through the room even though all the windows were closed. “Get out of my sight,” he said, voice dangerously low and promising pain if Flynt didn’t comply.

“Tell me, what was it like?” Ryan had to resist the urge to leap up and clap his hand over this idiot’s mouth. Did he not understand who he was talking to? He was facing off against a man who had years of experience, more then they probably ever would have combined. He was not going to win this fight, and yet he kept talking. “Going against nature, as you so _poetically_ put it.”

Ryan wasn’t exactly sure what happened in the next few seconds, all he knew was at the end of it a few tables were on fire, there was a very distinct smell of sulfur in the air, and Flynt was nowhere to be seen.

Things went on as normal for the next few weeks, though Ryan never really stopped wondering where Flynt had gone. It wasn’t until a freak fire started in one of the houses of the village he was staying at spread and consumed everything, leaving him homeless and the whereabouts of Edgar unknown, that he got a fairly good idea.

He found his way to a city that was just starting to be built, with people who smiled every day and were always astounded by the things he could do with magic. He didn’t think about Flynt or Edgar for a long time past deciding a name for his cow until the day Ray came back to the city and told a story of a man who had hurt him, changed him. A man that he knew, a man who was known for his questionable morals and dangerous use of magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title for this chapter is "Flynt Coal?"


	16. Everything's (Almost) Alright

"So you're telling us that you... used to know this guy?" Burnie asked slowly, as if trying to tie together a knot that didn't want to be tied. "And he... what? Destroyed your future? That sounds a little..." he made a motion with his hands that made it clear he didn't know how to put what he was thinking into words. 

"Well... I knew him from a distance. We never really talked but I knew who he was. I'm pretty sure he knew who I was, too, but there wasn't that many people so it's not that much of a surprise-" Ryan stopped talking abruptly, noticing Ray walking towards where he was standing. Ray wasn't really sure what he looked like, his head was too full of what Ryan had just told everyone in the room. He felt fire in his stomach and heat on his arms and everyone vacated the area around him, careful to dance out of range of the fire spitting off him. He probably would have winced at the frightened looks on everyone’s face, but right now he didn’t really process them.

When he made it to Ryan he glared at the man, tilting his head up since the older man was so much taller than he was. Somehow it didn’t diminish the effect the glare had on the man. "You didn't think," he said slowly, "That this-" he motioned broadly, trying to convey that he meant Ryan's relationship with the Mage. "-was something I would have liked to know? That it was important that I know?" 

"I- Ray, I-" Ryan stuttered, trying to compose himself and come up with some kind of excuse that would make it all right that he had _neglected_ to tell Ray this important bit of information.

Something snapped in him, though, something that had been cut and burned and abused for a long time, something that he had managed to keep in check. It wasn't that he was so mad at Ryan that this was something he wanted to do, but it just so happened that this was the straw that broke the camel's back. 

He saw Ryan leap back as the fire spread out wider, fiercer, powerful and hungry. For a few heartbeats he couldn’t tell where he ended and the fire began. But then he heard screams that were panicked and confused, and as soon as they broke through to him his expression dropped from anger to fear, because he had let the fire out and now he couldn't control it. He withdrew into himself, hugging his arms around his body and squeezed his eyes shut. He was pretty sure he sunk to the ground at one point but couldn't quite tell because all he could feel was the fire around him and he couldn't think past the roaring of the flames. 

A splash of something freezing cold – water - shocked him out of whatever it was that was happening and his eyes shot open to see Ryan staring at him, concerned. Not scared, just concerned. 

"I-" he tried to say, having to swallow before any more words would properly come out. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"It's alright, Ray," he said quietly, soothingly, "You didn't mean it, and you're right, I should have told you before. I was dumb and didn't think you would react like that. I should have told you." 

He nodded silently, taking the proffered hand and hauling himself up. He glanced behind him, water dripping from his hair into his eyes, and hugged his arms to his chest at the terrified eyes staring at him, though most of them had faded to concern. He caught sight of a shaking Joel, holding a bucket that probably held water at one point. 

He turned back to Ryan quickly, whispering, "Can I leave?" He nodded and led him towards a back door that led into a hallway then what he assumed was a guest room. He practically collapsed on the bed, closing his eyes and letting himself fall asleep. 

He didn't wake up for a long time, or, at least, what felt like a long time, even with the dark nightmares that plagued his sleep. He wasn't sure how long it had been, but it still looked dark when he opened his eyes. He thought he was awake, but when he tried to move he couldn't. It was like something was holding him down, and before he knew it the walls weren't the friendly wood panels of Burnie's house but the bare brick walls covered in shelves of jars and knives and all kinds of instruments that he couldn't begin to guess the purpose of. 

"So... what should we do with you, now?" a dark voice asked somewhere just out of his line of sight. He tried to look towards that dreaded voice, because it was the Mage. Who else could it be? Either way he couldn't see the fucker, only a shadow drifting and twisting out of sight. "Ah, I know. A bear. That seems like it would fit your, ah, _personality_."

Ray would have been confused, had he been given the opportunity to be. Soon enough it felt like he was thrust into a room full of needles, poking and tearing into his skin and changing anything that was, at his core, him and making it into something else. It was so sickeningly familiar and yet so foreign at the same time that he didn't know what to do besides scream, so that's what he did. 

It didn't take long for a door to burst open and the bare brick walls to disappear and the force holding him down released. He leapt out of the bed and threw himself into the arms of Ryan who had been standing in the doorway, terribly concerned. 

He gripped the fabric of the older man's shirt, sucking in the smell of him, of pumpkins and smoke, of long nights sitting near a potion stand, of dirt clumping and clinging to his boots as he walked home through the wet grass. He focused on Ryan and only Ryan and it all seemed so right, that he was _supposed_ to do this, that Ryan was the only one who could possibly do this, the only one who would hold him when he was scared and scarred and frightened. 

But that wasn't him, not anymore. He wasn't really Ray, at least not anymore. He was someone else, someone born from fired stolen from the Nether, someone who couldn't love a man he didn't really remember. But for now he just wanted to be comforted, so he didn't move and he didn’t say anything. 

"Are you alright? You were screaming." Ray didn't respond, just buried his face deeper into Ryan's chest. "Nightmare?"

"Sleep paralysis," he murmured, because of course that was what it had been. It had been terrible and too real and it didn't feel like a dream but it couldn't have been real, either. Because if it was real that meant Michael was hurting and he needed someone to get him out. 

"Oh, Jesus," Ryan muttered, rubbing Ray's back in what was probably supposed to be a soothing manner. He pushed away, though, and stared into Ryan's eyes. 

"When are you leaving?" 

Ryan looked a bit startled at the question. "Today," he finally managed to say. 

Ray nodded. "Good. You need to go help Michael. He's hurting."

Ryan's eyebrows furrowed. "How do you know?" 

Ray shrugged. Ryan left reluctantly and by the time the sun had properly risen a good portion of the village's warriors and magic users had left, off to fight a Mage because he had hurt one of their own. 


	17. Spooky Scary Skeletons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Shinju_Tori who helped me write this chapter (really, she wrote most of it) and who's generally just been helping me with ideas and things for this whole story. You're the best :D

Instead of following Michael like he was supposed to Gavin ran off after the guy dressed in red. He glanced back once, though by that time Michael and the other guard had already vanished. He shrugged. Too late to make a different choice now. He turned back towards the quickly moving figure and followed him, eventually coming to a cave. He soon came to a fork in the tunnels and paused, looking around confused. Which way did he..?

“AAAHHH!” A hoarse shout came from the tunnel to his left. Gavin sprinted down that way, almost tripping on the loose stones, until he saw the curled up body of the guy he was chasing being attacked by cave spiders. Gavin drew his bow and rapid fired at the spiders until they were dead or had fled. 

Gavin put his bow away and slowly approached the guy he had been chasing. The man looked up at him, his whole body shaking just a little bit. There was a moment when Gavin swore he saw a skull wearing glasses rather than an actual face, but it quickly passed leaving a gaunt tired looking guy with several weeks’ worth of beard on his face.

“P-Please don’t hurt me…” the guy said hoarsely, and it reminded Gavin a little too much of Ray. 

Gavin raised his hands to show that he wasn’t holding any weapons and said calmly, “If you don’t plan on hurting me, then why’d you and that other fellow attack my friend?” 

The guy shivered and curled up as Gavin crouched next to him “I-I didn’t want to... we... we were commanded too…”

Gavin frowned slightly. That didn’t sound good. “Commanded?”

The guy reached up to touch his face before whispering, “T-The mask you knocked off my face? It allowed him to control me. J-Jeremy has this medallion, a-and there are others with other things…”

Suddenly his tired expression turned into one of fear as he looked up at Gavin “Jeremy! He’s still under the Mage’s control!” He shot up, startling Gavin into standing up too. 

Gavin caught him as he started to sway. “Whoaa! Hang in there! You need to rest for a moment!” Gavin noticed how the guy kept his one arm close to his stomach while the other grabbed onto Gavin’s clothing for support. He was definitely not in any condition to do this alone.

The guy shook his head, “N-Need to go free Jeremy a-and the others…”

Gavin sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to stop the man. He said, “Well most likely my friends have gone to Cock Byte and are on their way to there with reinforcements.”

The guy relaxed slightly at that. “You have friends coming for you and the other guy?”

Gavin nodded “That’s right.” He watched the guy sigh and collapse onto the floor again before asking, “What’s your name by the way? I’m Gavin.”

The guy stared at him for a few moments before softly saying, “Matt…”

Gavin smiled at him, saying maybe a little too loudly, “Nice to meet you, Matt! Do you know…?”

He trailed off as Matt softly called out, “I know you’re there... come out please…”

Gavin stiffened as a group of about five skeletons, humanoid creatures that were so gaunt one could count all of their bones, came out from deeper in the tunnel. The clanks and other small sounds that usually accompanied them sounded too loud in the quiet space of the cave. All of them were armed with bows though a couple had battered pieces of armor on as well. 

“Don’t worry... they’ll listen me,” he muttered to Gavin, resting a hand on his arm that was already reaching back for his bow.

He shakily stepped away from Gavin and spoke to the skeletons. “I know you don’t care for the sun but it’s sunset now so there are plenty of shadows to hide in. Could you retrieve a mask from the ruined village for me and keep an eye out for a troop of humans headed this way?”

The skeletons seemed to talk amongst themselves briefly, a strange clanking, grinding sound, before one, the apparent leader with an enchanted bow and a battered helmet, nodded at Matt. Matt held out the hand that he had been keeping away from Gavin, and just like he remembered from the village, it was bone up to the shoulder.

The skeleton shook hands with him before the group moved past them and headed out of the cave. Matt sighed and sat down on the floor. Gavin chewed his lip before reaching into his bag and pulling out a bottle of water, some steak, and some bread.

He sat next to Matt and nudged him with his shoulder “Hey…” Matt jumped and stared at him as he offered him the food and drink.

Matt hesitated before snatching them from him and digging in ravenously. Gavin chose to ignore how badly his arms were shaking and how his whole body shook silently.

When he was done Gavin asked, “So there’s you and that guy who was with you…”

Matt softly said, “Jeremy. We... we went around from village to village selling potions and building things for them. After he caught us…” He shivered before whispering “He said it was fitting making Jeremy what he cured and I was already skinny enough to him to be a skeleton…”

Gavin made a sympathetic noise as Matt continued “As he changed us we met Lindsay; who he crossed with some sort of Firebird, Tina; who he crossed with an enderman, Kerry; who he crossed with a cow, and Kdin who is a dragon.”

“A dragon!?” Gavin gasped with wide eyes.

Matt nodded. “Somehow the Mage bound him into a human form that still breaths fire and has wings and horns and stuff. It makes him easier to control or something that way.” The skeleton man paused before adding, “There was another guy that got crossed with a Blaze. Ray, I think his name was-”

Gavin squealed, cutting off anything else he was going to say. “You know Ray!”

Matt looked surprised, saying quietly, “Y-Yes?”

Gavin grinned and slapped Matt’s back. “That’s why me and my boi came out here! We found out what that bastard did to him so we came to take him down!”

Matt stared at him and asked, “A-Are you guys suicidal? There’s no way you can take him down!”

Gavin puffed himself up proudly. “You haven’t met my boi...”


	18. Role-reversal

When his vision started to come back he almost thought it hadn't because the world was still so dark. The torches set into sconces on the walls didn't actually do much besides spew smoke and blacken the walls behind them. He tried to move, feeling cold stone under his hands and colder metal around his wrists. The back of his head felt sore and he groaned a bit as he touched an undoubtedly bruised portion of his head. He couldn’t help it as his mind wandered to what Ray had told him before, about how he had woken up chained to a wall and alone but for a girl with red hair and wings. 

He tugged against the chains, huffing in annoyance when they didn't budge. He heard a shuffling somewhere in the cell, and his head shot up and his eyes looked around wildly. He finally found the source of the noise, sucking in a deep breath. She looked terribly worn down, tired beyond belief, her wings scuffed and bare in some places, feathers littering the floor. Michael slowly moved towards her, making enough noise to make it clear what he was doing. 

"Are you Lindsay?" he asked gently, though that sent her into a frenzy, a reaction he wasn't expecting. 

She immediately jerked away from him, scrambling onto unsteady feet as she tried to get far away from him. For some reason he felt his heart hurt. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him, but he supposed a stranger dropping into the same cell and immediately knowing who she was couldn’t be the best thing for her right now. He heard her whispering something that sounded like, "How does he know my name? I've never met him before how does he know that?"

Michael raised his hands, trying to calm her down, and started speaking in a calm voice. "I know Ray. He's my friend. He told me about you."

"Ray?" she said, almost like she didn't recognize the name, before her eyes brightened. Almost immediately her entire disposition changed and she looked excited and full of energy. She ran forward, grabbing Michael's hands and saying, "What happened to him? Where is he? Everyone thought the Mage killed him oh god what happened to him?" 

"He's fine," Michael assured her, and she almost immediately relaxed. "A little frayed around the edges if you know what I mean but for the most part fine."

"How did he get out?" She looked him up and down. "And who are you?"

"My name's Michael," he started to say, before she cut him off. 

"Michael? You're _that_ Michael? The loud, angry one?" 

He blinked at her. "Uh... yeah? How do you know that?"

"Ray used to tell me stories about you guys. It helped us both calm down, and it was always pretty funny." Michael filed that away to bring up later when he saw Ray again. 

He opened his mouth to speak again, only to be interrupted by a door opening loudly, grating against the floor and letting a bit more light spill into the small cell. A man walked in - the same one from before, with the green skin and sickly pallor and sunken eyes. If he didn't know any better he'd say he looked like a zombie, but then again he wouldn't put it past the Mage to somehow get a zombie to work for him. The man walked forward, pulling out a rusting key and unlocking Michael's chains and pulling him roughly to his feet and leading him out of the cell. 

He waved over his shoulder at Lindsay before he lost sight of her. They were walking down a hallway made of smooth stone, iron doors and bars cropping up at regular intervals and he could almost hear the things banging against the metal, roars and cries and whimpering. They all melded into a kind of white noise that faded into the background, though that didn't make them any easier to ignore. There was one door with white markings around it that caught his eye and he could practically feel something shaking the walls from the other side. Michael made a mental note to remember where that door was if he ever needed to know. 

They stopped in front of a door that looked about the same as every other one but as the door opened Michael felt his heart beat faster in his chest. The walls were bare brick, metal tables and all sorts of scary looking instruments lined the walls. There was a very distinctive hum of magic in the air and Michael swallowed hard as he caught sight of the man himself. 

He was every bit as intimidating as Ray had described, all black robes and dark eyes, dark words that fell out of his mouth. He looked Michael up and down, looking a bit confused as to why Michael wasn't freaking out. Well, outwardly at least. He would be lying if he said he wasn't a little bit terrified. 

"Now, who might you be?" The Mage said quietly, low enough so that if Michael had not been listening he would not have heard it. Michael figured now was as good a time as any to try to do what he'd come here for. He sucked in a deep breath and flung himself towards what looked like a sword on the wall, only to feel his body freeze. It wasn't like he just stopped moving, it felt like someone had physically grabbed him and kept him in one position. He heard the Mage make a low, disappointed noise. 

Michael glared at him, or, tried to. It was kind of hard since he couldn't exactly move that much, and growled deep in his throat at him since he couldn't talk, either. He strained against the invisible hands but it didn't do much good. 

The Mage shook his head and waved his hand and the next thing Michael knew he was laying on a metal table with the Mage smiling above him and in a rush all the things Ray had said before, about the fire and the pain and the cold metal and colder hands came back to him and his heart threatened to burst out of his chest. 

"So... what should we do with you, now?" the Mage mused, and Michael growled at him again. "Ah, I know. A bear, that seems like it would fit your, ah, _personality_." He seemed to spit the last word and Michael would have shouted back, had he been able to move. 

The next few hours - actually, he didn't know how long it was - was spent in that room and Michael finally started to understand why Ray had ended up the way he had.


	19. Jailbreak part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a little late. Hope you enjoy it and as always your comments are appreciated.

Gavin followed the directions Matt gave him as they snuck through the village, making sure to make as little noise as possible, dodging the guards that stalked through the buildings. They found the tower, the same one as before, that he and Michael had holed up in for a short time, and slowly crept inside, finding a staircase that wound down and down, the stone cracked and covered in cobwebs and the walls lined with burnt out torches. The atmosphere was oppressive and abrasive and with every step he wished he was anywhere but there.

If Matt wasn't assuring him that this was the right way to go he would have assumed that it was abandoned a long time ago. With the rest of the village in shambles, only shells of old buildings left it didn’t exactly look habitable. But with Matt there he knew better. It was time to go get Michael. 

Soon enough they came to an open archway that only led to more blackness, but as soon as he crossed the threshold it was like a veil had been pulled off his eyes and the hallway in front of him was smoky from torches that burned just enough so he could see, but not quite enough to rid the place of shadows. The air was practically saturated with magic, the feeling clinging to his skin like humidity.

"Stay close to me," Matt instructed. "Drag your feet, look miserable and confused." 

Their plan had been to sneak Gavin in under the guise of a prisoner. It would keep any guards they encountered off of them until they started doing what they came here for, which was to get Michael and as many other people as possible out. A jailbreak, really.

The mask that he had knocked off Matt was back on his face and it made him look overly sinister in the dim light, not that he didn't usually, but the mask just seemed... more unsettling. Maybe it was from the knowledge of its purpose, though according to Matt it had been deactivated so it was fine to wear. It didn’t make it any better, though.

They passed doors and bars that opened into shadows that he couldn't really see past. He could tell there were things moving, he could hear small whimpers and groans and pitiful wails that sounded broken and defeated. He flinched away from any and all noises and movements, not wanting to hear or see the things inside the cells. It had been hard enough to see Ray as broken and lost as he had been, he didn’t need to see someone who hadn’t had the time to heal at least partially.

All the sounds made a terrible symphony that he didn't want to hear, he wanted to block it out, but every time he tried it only seemed to get louder. He finally broke, though, because he knew he had to find Michael and to do that he would have to acknowledge the cells. His eyes scanned the doors and bars before he landed on a form laying on the ground near the hall, a form with wild brown hair that he recognized. 

He stopped Matt who only looked at him curiously. He turned back to the form on the ground. "Michael," Gavin whispered, repeating it louder when the man didn't respond. He reached out with his foot to nudge him and this time he actually stirred. 

Gavin opened his mouth to say something, only to be cut off by Michael's body banging against the bars and the feeling of Matt pulling him back from what looked like a clawed hand trying to grab him. Gavin's heart sank as he took in the wild, unfocused eyes of his friend. It occurred to him a little too late that he should have considered the possibility of getting to Michael only after the Mage had had his way with him.

He blinked back the stinging in his eyes and took in his friend and everything that had changed about him. His hair was a bit longer then when he had last seen him which was probably why he had initially missed the rounded ears that were now firmly in place on top of Michael's head. They reminded him a bit of a bear's, and looking at the rest of him, the sharp teeth, the clawed and hairy hands, and the overall feral appearance supported that theory. This was not good.

"M-Michael?" he tried again, attempting to keep his voice steady and ultimately failing as soon as the words started coming out of his mouth. "It's me, Michael. Gavin. You know me." 

He could have sworn he saw a flicker of recognition behind the unsettling animalistic look in Michael's eyes but it was gone in an instant and he was banging against the bars again, growling and trying to hurt him. 

"Hey, could you move, please?" Matt asked quietly from behind Gavin, and he started a bit at the sudden noise. He turned and nodded, stepping away and trying to collect himself. _Matt will know what to do,_ he tried to convince himself. _He knows what he’s doing._  Matt walked slowly, hands held out, and he kneeled where Michael was now crouched. "Hi," he said slowly, and Michael's claws shot out, only to be grabbed out of the air by Matt's hand. The skeletal one. 

Almost immediately Gavin saw a good portion of energy leave Michael as he sunk farther towards the ground, breathing heavily as Matt released him. "S-sorry," his friend managed to whisper, and that made Gavin laugh with relief after his heart had calmed down. He looked like Michael again, and that was the best thing that had happened in a while. 

He kneeled next to the two of them and Michael seemed to just realize he was there. "Michael!" Gavin cheered. 

"Gavin!" Michael mocked him, though he could see the smile at the edge of his lips, just barely contained. He winced, though, and the friendly air was gone and for a split second Gavin thought Michael would attack them again. He didn't, though. He just looked weary.

"Alright, time to get up," Matt said, already unlocking the door to Michael's cell. Gavin didn't miss the calculating eyes that Matt used to look Michael over. He remember what he had said before about the Mage and how he liked to control his... experiments. Apparently Matt didn't find anything of the kind on Michael because he nodded to himself before saying, "I need you to create a diversion while we get as many people as possible out." 

Michael nodded, a huge grin spreading over his face, though Gavin could tell it was a bit strained. "I know just where to go." 

Matt nodded as Michael started walking, though Gavin didn't miss the way he leaned heavily against the walls to support him. Matt turned to Gavin. "We're going to split up. It's not going to take long for guards to come, and just remember what I said before, about how everyone has some kind of item that they will be wearing that the Mage uses to control them. Get it off and they'll most likely help." 

Gavin nodded. He doubted he would actually try to engage any guards but it was good to know. Matt turned to leave, but before he could get out of sight Gavin yelled, "Wait, where the hell do I go?"

He glanced back and shrugged. "Wherever. I'm sure someone will need your help."

Gavin looked around quickly, seeing dark walls and cells that probably didn't hold anything friendly and started walking in a different direction then where Michael and Matt had gone. He found himself peeking into bars and stealing keys off walls and unlocking any and all doors that he could, nudging them open and running away in case anything inside would try to hurt him.

It wasn't long before he heard footsteps. Heavy and marching footsteps that could only belong to the guards. So he ran, reaching a random door at a dead end and tried the knob, finding it, surprisingly, unlocked, and slipped inside, locking it behind him and listening for the guards. When he didn't hear anything he turned to see where the hell he was. 

It was a room lined with shelves, bottles and bowls of glowing and smoking things that he couldn't begin to identify. He could see a potion stand on a table, bottles in it full of potions of strange colors that he wasn't familiar with. There were things in cages that moved slowly and sluggishly but Gavin was almost certain that they weren't quite alive, and if they were they certainly weren't sentient. At least he really hoped not. He found his way to a particular shelf, this one almost empty but for a few bottles that glowed a dim white, swirling and emitting a faint warmth.

He took one down, noticing a label on it. "Subject: Blaze. Soul containment." 

Hadn't Ray been crossed with a blaze? He grabbed the top of the bottle, probably to open it, but before he could a banging came from the door he had come from. It scared him so badly that his grip on the bottle loosened and it tumbled to the floor, shattering on impact. The light seemed to fade out into the air and the shards pulsed momentarily before it became a regular mess.

He heard a door open on the other side of the room and in a panic Gavin ducked behind a shelf, hiding himself from whoever was coming through the room. He peeked through the books and vials, seeing someone dressed in dark colors sweep through the room, leaving through the doors where he assumed the guards were waiting. He let out a sigh of relief as the door shut, glad he hadn't been spotted. 

"What're you looking at?" a shockingly familiar voice asked and Gavin felt his heart jump at the question. He whipped his head around, seeing the owner of the voice. He blinked rapidly, wondering how the hell he had gotten here, before dully wondering what the hell happened to his hair to make it so white. 

"R-Ray?" He choked out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, thanks so much for 2k hits! I really appreciate it :D


	20. Jailbreak part 2

He was thrown back into a cell after the Mage decided he was done with him. His body felt like it was covered in a thousand needles, all driving into him and gouging out everything that he thought he was. It hurt, but soon enough it dulled into a throbbing, ever present pain. He knew something had changed in him, that his body had changed and that this was probably the worst plan they had ever made. But at the same time it was getting harder to think, to keep himself together. 

He just felt himself curl into himself more, the sharp claws that were now a part of his hands only adding to the pain already there by tearing grooves down his arms. He felt himself shake and move, but it was all distant, like it was happening to someone else and not him. 

It felt like he was alone for an eternity before someone started talking to him. "Michael," someone said quietly, but he didn't move. He couldn't think properly, he couldn't process sounds and make them into words. He couldn't quite remember who he was, in all honesty, but he couldn't bring enough thoughts together to be worried about that. 

All he knew was there was a human outside the bars. He could smell them, gunpowder and leather. He chose to ignore whoever it was, hoping they would go away. They only kept talking, nudging him in the side with their foot and before he knew it he was up and reaching through the bars, trying to tear apart the human so he would just leave him alone. He felt a growl rumble in his throat as another human stepped forward. He didn't like how this one smelled, like death and bones. 

He said something that he couldn't understand before crouching near where he was, and on instinct his claws shot out, ready to tear the human to shreds. He only caught his arm and immediately he felt a good bit of energy leave him, but it brought back his mind and he practically collapsed on the floor. "S-sorry," he managed to say, embarrassed because he had legitimately just tried to kill Gavin. 

"Michael!" the man himself said cheerfully. He rolled his eyes a bit.

"Gavin!" he mocked back, smiling back at him when a grin spread over his face. His smile flickered when he felt his mind threaten to leave him again but he grit his teeth and made it stay together. He was not going to try to fucking kill Gavin again and in all honesty he felt like this was going to be a common occurrence. If it was then he would have to power through it. He was _not_ going to hurt a friend.

"Alright, time to get up," the other guy said, unlocking the door to the cell he had been in and Michael nodded his thanks to him as he got up and walked out. He ignored the shaking in his legs. The guy addressed him, saying, "I need you to create a diversion while we get as many people as possible out." 

Michael nodded, feeling a grin spread across his face. At least this part of their plan still had the possibility of success. "I know just where to go." 

He winced a bit as he started walking, having to lean on the wall for support. It was annoying, and he really hoped Gavin didn't see. He didn't want him to worry. Well, more than he was probably worrying after all that had happened.

He found the cell first, the one he had woken up in the first time, and really it was a miracle he even remembered where it had been. He grabbed a set of keys that were hanging on the wall and unlocked the cell, wincing as the door scraped against the ground, screeching in his ears. "Lindsay?" he called hesitantly, not positive that she was still there. His doubts proved unfounded as he felt her practically throw herself on him, enveloping him in a hug and almost smothering him with her wings. 

"Oh my god I thought you died how the hell are you even here what did he do to you?" Lindsay spoke so fast Michael almost didn't catch what she said. He slowly pushed her off him, smiling a little as she looked him over with a critical eye. She grabbed one of his ears and he yelped, swatting her hand away. "A bear?" she asked. Michael shrugged. 

His smile widened, though, and he said, "Want to help cause a distraction?"

She blinked at him. "What?"

"We're breakin' outta this place," he stage whispered at her, and her eyes practically lit up as she gripped his arm. He winced as her nails dug into his skin. 

"Are you - are you serious, Michael?" He wasn't sure if she was about to start laughing or crying. He nodded, and the weary and defeated look that had been in her eyes ever since he had met her evaporated in an instant. She moved toward him and before he knew it her lips were on his and he didn't have the time to process what was happening before it was over and Lindsay was blushing profusely. "S-sorry, I just-" she cut herself off and walked down the hallway a bit, hands behind her back and wings pressed tightly together. "Sorry. Let's get going."

Michael pressed a hand over his mouth, trying to hide is smile. "What was that for?"

Her face got even redder, if that was possible. "S-shut up! It was a heat of the moment thing. Don't read too much into it."

Michael didn't stop smiling as he started walking towards her then past her. She turned and followed close behind. "So you're telling me you didn't enjoy it?" 

He felt a wing hit the back of his head and he laughed to himself, but he didn't say anything more. 

It wasn't long before they came to the same door he had seen before, the one with white markings littering it and crashes and bangs and growls coming from the inside. Whatever was inside here was almost guaranteed to cause a very big distraction. He glanced at Lindsay. "Do you know what's in there?"

She nodded. "That's Kdin." She seemed to understand why he asked a second later and her eyes widened and she looked like she was trying to decide whether it was a good idea or a terrible one. "Ok, yeah, let's do it, but we should probably... get ready to run." 

Michael looked at her curiously. Anything making that much noise couldn't be met without some risk, but he was still curious. "What is he?"

"A dragon."

"A dragon?" Michael repeated, trying to decide whether he should be impressed or scared that the Mage had somehow managed to capture and contain a  _dragon_  of all things. 

"Yep," Lindsay said, motioning him away from the door. She closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate. It was silent for a while before Lindsay started talking again, almost scaring Michael with the sudden noise. "Alright, he says he won't hurt us intentionally, but we have to leave quickly if we don't want to get caught in the crossfire."

"Uh... how do you know?"

She just grinned slyly and tapped the side of her head. "I couldn't very well know his name unless I had some way to talk to him." 

"Oh," Michael muttered lamely. He supposed he should have expected a dragon to have enough power to at least communicate through a magic barrier. 

"Alright, let's do this," Lindsay said, taking a deep breath. She reached out, rubbing the runes and symbols off the door before wrenching it open, keeping it in front of her as she opened it wider, almost getting knocked back into the opposite wall as a wall of fire erupted out of the room and Michael just managed to dive out of the way. 

Out of the room came what looked like a man (at least at first) but as the fires got more intense Michael had to shield his eyes as he heard rumbling and roaring, cracking his eyes open just enough to catch sight of what he had expected a dragon to look like, all scales and sharp edges, talons and teeth that could tear apart a warrior without a second thought. In an instant, though, it was gone and the hallway was left charred and cracked in some places. He could still hear the dragon as it moved through the tunnels and he glanced at Lindsay. 

"Yep, time to go!" She grabbed his hand, almost crushing it in her grip, and ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction of where the dragon had gone. Michael followed closely, stumbling a bit and chancing a glance back, wondering why Lindsay was so determined to get away. The falling chunks of stone and dirt answered his question quickly enough. 

He turned back hurriedly, putting on an extra burst of speed as he felt dust coat his back. They turned a few corners and before he knew it they were climbing a flight of stairs back out into the sunlight. 

-.-

Matt knew where to find Jeremy but that didn't mean he was enthusiastic of going there. Going there meant going back to the Mage, and as much as he hated that man he couldn't just leave Jeremy there alone so he swallowed the sick feeling in his stomach and pushed open the door, glad for the mask over his face to hide his expression. 

The Mage didn't respond to his entrance, only continued working on whatever the hell he was working on. Matt scanned the room, catching sight of Jeremy standing silently near the door. He walked over stiffly, finding a place next to Jeremy and biting his lip hard to keep from actually moving. If he did now his cover would be blown. Plus, if everything went well the Mage would leave in three... two...

There was a bang from somewhere outside the room, followed by a lot of shouting and clanking and... and growling and the Mage cursed before walking swiftly out the door, motioning for the guards to follow him. Jeremy started moving almost immediately but Matt grabbed his arm, ripping the medallion off of his neck and he had to catch the dead weight that Jeremy very suddenly became. 

"Jeremy? _Jeremy_ ," Matt said worriedly, shaking him a little, trying to get him to wake up. If Michael had gone to get who he thought he did then they didn't have much time to get going. He let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding when Jeremy's eyes fluttered open and Matt almost felt like he could cry, instead pressing his forehead against Jeremy's and holding him close. It was over. They were free again.

They still had to escape, though.  

"Matt?" He was broken out of his thoughts when Jeremy asked quietly, confused, "What... where...?" 

"You're safe, you're free," he said, not yet willing to let the other man go. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the prickling pain in his arm, tried to focus on the feeling of Jeremy in his arms and nothing else. He didn't want to think about what had happened. He wanted to think of how they used to be, when they were human and free, when they didn't have to worry about anything because they had each other. 

Too soon they had to get up and move, though. They rushed through the halls, practically fused together with how close they were, bumping shoulders every few seconds as the rumblings farther down the halls prompted them to move faster. They were getting out and hopefully everyone else would follow soon. 

-.-

Gavin was startled out of staring at... Ray when the door to the study burst open and a girl stumbled in. Her hair was long and dark, her eyes a startling purple, and Gavin didn't move, couldn't move, but that didn't mean Ray couldn't. He seemed to almost phase out of existence, moving towards the girl, and in a blink he was standing in front of her and Gavin had to move. 

"I know you," Ray said quietly, and the girl had to stifle a shriek from the sudden appearance of Ray. For the first time Gavin was able to take in how... practically transparent he looked. Along with the shockingly white eyes it all painted a man that looked more like Ray then the Ray he had left back at Achievement City looked. 

"Ray?" she asked, sounding something between shocked and hopeful. 

"You know him?" Gavin asked, startling the girl for a second time. He shot her an apologetic look that she either didn't catch or chose to ignore. 

"Yeah, of course I know him! We... well, we talked a lot." She blinked before she seemed to finally process Gavin's presence. "Wait... who the hell are you?"

"I'm Gavin-"

"Wait, are you that Gavin? The annoying one?"

Gavin sent her a withering look (also slightly confused as to how she knew him) but didn't get the chance to say anything as Ray took the small silence to ask, "How do I know you?" He sounded incredibly lost, and it reminded Gavin of how he had sounded when he had first seen the city again. "I know you, how do I know you?" Something changed in his expression as he said, "Tina." 

The girl broke into a huge grin and Gavin assumed that meant that was her name. "Yep, that's me!" Her smile fell, though. "Hey, Ray, are you... are you ok?"

He seemed to sway a bit, his eyes obviously unfocused even when his irises weren't completely visible. "I was... I... did I die? No... I didn't, but... I did?" Gavin moved forward, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and worry as Ray seemed to fade from view for a few seconds. 

"Ray?" he prompted quietly, before saying again, this time louder, "Ray!"

That seemed to snap him out of whatever daze he was in. "Vav?" 

He smiled weakly. "What's going on here, Ray?" This was all kinds of messed up. "You shouldn't even be here!" 

Tina spoke up from behind him. "Actually, I think I might know what happened." Gavin turned to her and waited for her to continue. "The Mage... likes to control people. Sometimes they're stubborn, though, and not easily controlled. When that happens he takes their memories away, usually suppressing them, but lately he's been... well, essentially he's taken people's... souls. What's essentially the them created by their experiences and memories and... removing it."

"So like a ghost?" Gavin mused as he tried to wrap his head around what Tina was saying. 

"Sure… like a ghost," she agreed, somewhat reluctantly. 

Any further conversation they would have had was interrupted by the room shaking and glass clinking together as dust rained down on them from the ceiling. A dull rumbling sound started and Gavin shared a panicked look with Tina. "We need to get out of here," he said hurriedly. 

Tina nodded. "Follow me."

He did, seeing as he didn't really have much choice, and before long, after a back exit and a series of cramped tunnels, he found himself outside and staring at the sky again. Tina was staring, too, her eyes glistening a bit. Ray appeared next to her and Gavin relaxed greatly as he noticed Michael and a girl standing a ways away, talking to a group of people that he immediately recognized as their reinforcements. 

He was about to call out to them when the dragon burst out of the crumbling ground. 


	21. Imagine Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So let me just start out by saying it's very late for me as I'm posting this and I'm very tired, so sorry for any and all mistakes or formatting issues. Updates may be irregular for a while as I'm out of state at the moment and i don't have a lot of time to myself (or very good internet) so I won't be able to write/post as often as I would like. Anyways, on with the chapter.

"What the hell happened to you?" Ryan asked worriedly upon seeing him. Michael grinned crookedly, hoping it didn't look as broken as it felt and glad to see them again. Lindsay was stiff next to him, not quite sure how to react to the sudden appearance of these strangers. Michael dimly noted Ryan looking over her, lingering for a moment on her wings. She visibly flinched as Geoff took in a deep breath and started yelling, though, and Michael shuffled a bit closer to her, both for his benefit as well as hers.

  
"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU GUYS THINKING?" Geoff thundered, and Michael couldn't help but feel a bit relieved that he hadn't changed too much since he had last seen him which, he reflected, seemed like years when in reality it had been a week at most. "YOU MAKE A SUPID ASS PLAN, PUT YOURSELVES IN DANGER-" this continued on for a good five minutes before Jack finally managed to get him to be quiet.

  
"What happened, Michael?" he asked, gesturing to his appearance and he couldn't quite muster up a smile this time.

  
"It's like Geoff said, we're dumb, we rushed into this without thinking. I paid for it." Jack kept his mouth shut after that, though he kept sending concerned glanced toward Michael the rest of the conversation.

Michael glanced behind the three gents, noting the small crowd of people he recognized, waving a bit at them, only to be met with silence as they looked around, as if trying to find something they couldn't see. "Do you... hear that?" Gus asked quietly, almost scared to break the silence.

  
Michael was silent, attempting to hear whatever it was that was unsettling everyone so much. He did. And he had a pretty good idea of what was causing the ground to rumble and the air to thrum with the low sounds that were somehow escaping the tunnels underground. He turned to Lindsay, and by her expression she heard it too. "Kdin?"

  
She nodded. "Yeah." She took in a deep breath, her feathers a bit ruffled and her hair tangled and dirty, and turned towards the crowd. "We need to move," and they listened to her. Unfortunately it was too little too late.

  
The ground seemed to sag and break before the dragon dug himself out, wings dusty and scratched, yet somehow startlingly black, seemingly sucking in light, grays an purples winding their way over his scales, leading to startlingly green eyes that seemed untouched by the dirt and stone that had been displaced and destroyed. Michael found himself frozen to the spot, unable to move or tell the others not to attack, and before he knew what he was doing he was diving out of the way of a funnel of fire, though something about it implied that it was more for show then anything. (It was probably the lack of heat and the superfluously brightly colored flames.)

  
"Stop!" he shouted as loudly as he could which, while impressive, was not enough to stop their reinforcements from firing arrows and bolts of magic at the perceived monster. Michael zeroed into a panicked Ryan, his staff glowing brightly, obviously charging something that would not help their situation. He stumbled up, rushing towards him, only for the same man as before, Matt, if he remembered correctly, grabbed his staff with his thin, body hand, the light immediately fading.

  
He made it to Ryan in time to stop him from trying to murder Matt and the other man that was standing a ways away from him. He set himself firmly between the gent and the two men. "Michael? What the hell is going on?"

  
"That's Matt," he introduced quickly, "He's a friend. And so is the dragon." Matt nodded fervently at that, trying to help get Michael's point across.

 

Ryan glanced at the giant monster, slowly lowering his staff. "You're sure?"

 

"Positive."

 

Kdin took that opportunity to roar, sending most to cover their ears. The dragon took that short break in their attacks to launch into the sky, spinning a bit out of the hole that had been made in the middle of the city before he seemed to shrink and fall, landing on the ground with ease and a well-practiced grin. He looked human, reddish brown hair, a sharp face, and the same startling green eyes. Well, Michael mused, he is a dragon. Figures he can shape shift.

  
"Yo," he said, as everyone lowered their weapons and assumed the familiar expressions of confusion that seemed to be appeared more and more often as these things kept happening. Michael briefly thanked whatever god might be listening that he had never had any talent for magic. It got too confusing too quickly. "Thanks for attacking me," the dragon said, voice dripping sarcasm. "And thanks for heading over here to help but, unfortunately, the Mage and a few guards are gone already."

  
"Gone? Gone where?" an indignant voice asked from behind him. Michael felt himself break into a smile as Gavin walked over towards them, a girl trailing behind him, glancing around as if searching for something.

  
Kdin shrugged, not fazed by the appearance of two more people, only adding to the crowd. "Fuck if I know. He's just gone." He seemed to think a moment before pointing. "That way."

  
Michael felt the blood drain from his face. That was towards Cock Byte. "Oh," he managed to mutter. Everyone else (at least everyone that knew of the village) seemed to come to the same conclusion. He hoped it was just a coincidence, or that he would pass by the village without stopping there, but that was unlikely. There was a deep sigh from in the crowd.

  
"Guess we have to go back, then," Burnie mused, sounding slightly disappointed that they didn't get much excitement. Well, besides the dragon. It was nice to know Michael and Gavin were safe, though.  
Everyone agreed, though they also agreed that it would be for their benefit to rest for a few hours before they headed out again. In that time introductions were made and stories were shared and it wasn't until Tina had finished her introduction that they got another surprise.

  
"Yo," someone said, settling himself in the circle the Hunters (as well as most of the people who had been imprisoned by the Mage) were sitting in, startling everyone. Immediately Ryan shot up, stiff and frightened, both unusual for the man.

  
"Ray?" he practically shouted. "What the hell are you doing here?"

  
He shrugged, and slowly everyone started to calm down from the initial shock, taking in his appearance. Well, Michael thought, he definitely doesn't look how he did last time I saw him. "Dunno. Tina said something a while ago about ghosts or something but I'm still kinda confused."

  
Eyes shot to the aforementioned girl who seemed to shrink under the sudden attention. "U-uh, well, it's kinda complicated," she started, before explaining what she had explained to Gavin back in the study.

  
Ryan furrowed his brow, thinking over what she had said. "I... suppose that makes sense. You certainly feel like a soul, Ray."

  
"Uh... thanks?"

  
“But…” Gavin muttered, eyebrows furrowed. “Doesn’t that mean there’s two Rays? One here and one back at the village?”

  
“Well… yeah,” Ryan conceded, somewhat reluctantly. “I guess it does.”

  
It wasn't long after that when they had to leave, most people starting to get antsy as the implications of the Mage going to the village started to settle. Michael just hoped Ray would be alright (thinking about it, he wasn't completely sure how to deal with the two Ray situation but there were more pressing matters so he only hoped it would sort itself out).


	22. Something's Gotta Give

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm BACK, so you guys get a long chapter that I am absolutely not happy with but I figure I've kept you guys waiting long enough.

With their numbers almost doubled by the addition of the Changed (as Gavin had offhandedly called them, and the name had stuck. It was better than 'experiment' anyways.) that meant that their resources were stretched thin. They managed about a few hours and then a day of walking before this fact became apparent and rationing was necessary, resulting in a lot of groaning and complaining. In those few hours Michael felt... strange. It was hard to explain, and it wasn't all just the beast that threatened to break out its chains perpetually. 

It started with the whispers. 

They were barely perceptible at first, but once Michael caught on to their presence they seemed to get louder, all the while somehow still sounding like a whisper. He couldn't quite understand them but the low voice was still strangely familiar. He couldn't place where he'd heard it, though, only that he had. They got considerably worse when he slept. 

When the large party settled down for the night Gavin noticed something was wrong. "You alright, Michael?"

He shrugged a bit, laying on his back and not bothering to glance over at Gavin. Every time he closed his eyes the whispers got louder and it scared him just a little too much to try to go to sleep. "I'll be fine, Gav." 

Ray joined in as well, laying on the ground next to them even though Ryan had said that, as a soul, he didn't need to sleep. "Yeah, I agree with Vav. You don't look so good, dude." 

"I'm fine," Michael insisted, putting more force into his words then was perhaps necessary.

Gavin's mouth twisted, obviously not believing him. Michael felt his hands twitch. This wasn't good. He stood up abruptly. "I need to go." He felt exhausted but he couldn't sleep, or if he did it couldn't be near the others. He wasn't sure if either of the lads said anything in protest. He couldn't really hear anything past the whispers, and he could feel himself getting buried under the words. It was like when he woke up in that cell, not quite recognizing Gavin and unable to understand him, except this felt more focused, more forced. Like someone was doing this to him.

If he had to guess he'd say it was the Mage. There weren't many other people who would be able to pull off what he was experiencing as he stumbled through the tall grasses that whispered around his ankles and brushed his arms. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, and he fought against unconsciousness. Not until he was farther away. Just a little... farther...

He felt himself falling, finally getting drowned by the whispers, the voice he couldn't understand. His eyelids closed and he felt his identity fall away all at once. With nothing to keep them there the chains he had put up around the beast fell away. 

Rushing through the grass a few feet away was Gavin, followed closely by Ray who had almost immediately noticed that he didn't disturb the grass at all. He just seemed to phase through it like he wasn't there to begin with. He shook it off, though. There were more important things to focus on. 

"Where'd he run off to?" Gavin squawked, looking around frantically as he kept moving. 

"I dunno," Ray muttered, doing what Gavin was, looking for Michael through the grasses. 

It didn't take them long to find him, though it wasn't quite in the way they were planning. With a shout Gavin fell beneath the grass, having tripped over something hidden on the ground. Ray pushed his head through the grass, seeing Gavin leaning, concerned, over the motionless form of Michael. Ray didn't like the feeling he was getting from this, he didn't like the wind that blew through him that almost sounded like a voice whispering. 

"Gavin, you need to get away from him," he said with absolute certainty. He even went so far as to try to grab Gavin and pull him to his feet, only to have his hands phase through him. 

"What? What the bloody hell are you talking about, Ray?" was all Gavin said, turning his attention back to Michael in time to see his eyes shoot open and his hand reach out to grab Gavin's arm. He squawked and tugged, trying to get away from the wild look in Michael's eyes. There was no hint of recognition in them, no humanity. It sent a shiver down Ray's spine and he took a hesitant step back. "L-let go, Michael!" Gavin shouted, though Ray could tell he didn't actually expect the words to reach him. 

When the claws started digging into Gavin's arm Ray knew he had to do something. "Michael!" he shouted at the top of his lungs (lungs that he didn't have, since he was basically just a consciousness) and for a split second Michael's grip slackened and Gavin managed to pull away. 

Now, though, his attention was focused on Ray and he lunged, only managing to pass through Ray's middle harmlessly. It felt strange, though, and Ray shuddered before he felt himself flicker, and suddenly he was moving through the tall grass, whipping his head around, trying to see where he was. He stopped and stood up, finding his back hunched and knees bent. 

His eyes found Gavin just as he said, slightly confused, "M-Michael?" 

_Is he talking to me?_ Ray thought. It certainly seemed that way. "Uh... what?" 

Gavin started at that. "W-what... I- Ray?"

"Yeah...?" He furrowed his brow and looked down at his hands... those were not his hands, he realized with a start. They looked like... Michael's. "What the shit whattheshit _whattheshit_ ," Ray yelled, shaking his hands, somehow hoping to make them go away, make them his again, anything, really. 

"R-Ray, calm down!" Gavin yelled. "I-I dunno what's happening but I think... well, I think you bloody well possessed Michael."

"I did what?!" Ray yelled hysterically. "I thought we were _joking_ about the ghost thing!"

"I-I mean we were but I guess it... actually wasn't too far from the truth?"

"How do I get out of his body?" Ray shouted, not really listening to Gavin's musings. "How did I even do this?" 

"I dunno," Gavin replied, starting to calm down from the sudden surprise. "But I think... this actually might be good? You saw what Michael was doing before. He went bloody mental!" 

Ray furrowed his - Michael's - brow. "Yeah... I guess? I still don't want to be... possessing him, though." He flinched a bit when he heard something. It sounded like the whispering from before, but this time it was louder, angrier. He felt something thrash around in the back of his mind, banging on walls that shouldn't have existed. He squeezed his borrowed eyes shut and wound his hands through Michael's curly hair and groaned. 

"Ray? Are you... alright?" 

He couldn't really do anything besides shake his head mutely. It felt like something was trying to force him out, something more powerful than he was. For a moment he was lost behind Michael's anger and he barely processed Gavin taking a step away from him. His head snapped up and it was like he was looking at the world through two sets of eyes, one lined in red the other blurred around the edges. He felt Michael's body take a step forward but he couldn't quite get a grip on whatever he had before. It was like he was a backseat driver that couldn't actually do anything but except be there as a witness to confirm that yes, this was happening. 

The whispers were there, too, though this time he could understand them. Well, mostly, anyways. It was repeating, overlapping. They felt like commands, spaced out and blurred between the words he still couldn't quite understand. But they were coming _from_ somewhere, from someone. Ray closed his eyes (well, he didn't really, since he didn't have a physical body but you get the point) and concentrated, slowly drifting through some empty black place towards the source of the voice. 

He found it, and when he did it everything became eerily quiet, the black fading away to reveal something almost like a string, not quite there but sending the whispers towards where they were going, to Michael. He couldn’t see the source, wreathed in shadow, but he was focused more on helping his friend so he didn’t take the time to try to find out who was doing this, though he somehow had an idea.  

He wasn't sure why he did it, or how he knew instinctually who was doing this. A name drifted to him, more like a title, that made him shiver but he couldn't quite remember who it belonged to, just that he was to be feared and kept away from. He grabbed the string and almost immediately felt something like a shock run through him, only to stop abruptly and the string broke, fluttering down uselessly before it disappeared. 

Ray blinked, finding himself starting at Michael and Gavin, the former looking like he was about to pass out the latter looking glad that Michael had stopped looking like he wanted to murder everyone. "Uh..." Ray tried, catching their attention. "What the fuck just happened?"

"I dunno," Gavin muttered, sending concerned glances towards Michael. 

"I think the Mage did something or, like, tried to control me or something. I'm not really sure, honestly," Michael said, looking a little confused. Ray raised an eyebrow. There it was again, that name. 

"Who the fuck is the Mage?"

Michael blinked. "Ray, are you fucking serious." He shrugged. "He's come up like five times where have you even been?"

"Not paying attention I guess," he shrugged again. "But seriously, though, who is he?"

Michael sighed. "This is going to take a bit of explaining." 

-.-

It took a while and a lot of explaining on both their parts (after they woke up a group of previously sleeping gents, of course), but as the garbled stories and examinations were spewed it left Ray to say something pertaining to the events he, for some reason, couldn't remember. 

"So I was... experimented on?" he asked slowly, sitting on the ground with a group of familiar faces around him. For some reason he got a strong sense of déjà vu, except the storytelling was his to do and theirs to listen to. 

"Yes," Ryan replied. He was sitting closest to him and Ray could tell all he wanted was for them to be alone (and for Ray to be tangible) just like it used to be. 

"Then why can't I remember any of it?" 

Ryan shrugged, looking lost. It was strange to see such an expression on his face, since he was usually the one with the answers. "My best guess? Because the Mage wanted those memories in your body." 

"Okaaaay, that's a little creepy." He rubbed his hands together nervously. Eager to get away from the topic at hand he asked, "So... what happened with Michael?"

Ryan brightened at that. It seemed he knew the answer for this question, unlike the last one. "The Mage enabled a kind of... remote control over Michael, something he probably put in as part of the base enchantment that... changed him."

Michael stiffened. "You're saying he could just get me to kill you guys at any time?"

Ryan made a noncommittal noise and shrugged. "That's not _exactly_ what I'm saying, but yes, something to that effect." 

"So what do we do?" Michael asked, on the verge of shouting. "I don't want some maniac in my head all the fucking time!" 

"I don't know," Ryan said simply. "I guess for now all we can do is keep an eye on you and head back to the village." Michael obviously didn't like that answer but he didn't say anything more, just fidgeted uncomfortably. 

It took them half a day of walking before the village to come into sight. In that time there were no other outbursts from Michael, though everyone could tell that he was extremely uneasy and it wasn't hard to guess why. The time was spent talking and laughing, attempts to distract themselves from thinking about what they would find when they got back to the village. 

Thankfully, their fears proved unfounded, but that didn't stop the anxiety during the entire trip there, or the confusion afterwards.


	23. Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I'm really sorry this chapter is so late. I've had major writer's block for a while (and I lost almost all motivation for this fic as well) but now I'm back and hopefully the next chapter won't take as long to write out.

With almost everyone he knew gone Ray found himself spending more and more time around the kids he had met earlier. They were nice, accepting, and didn't quite get why everyone tended to walk the other way if they saw Ray. They were kids, though, and they didn't always understand why he always looked, as Yang so eloquently put it, "really bummed out." 

"I've been through some... bad stuff," he tried to explain, rather lamely in his opinion. He had been talking to them for a few hours but he still wasn't quite sure how much they could comprehend. It wasn't that he thought they were dumb kids, it was just that he didn't know if they had any experience to equate what he was telling them to. 

"What happened?" Juane, the small, blond boy asked with wide, blue eyes. 

"A very, very bad man hurt me," Ray said slowly, hoping that his distress didn't show through on his face. "He... did things to me that I'd rather not think about." He stiffened slightly when he felt hands wrap around his arm and he glanced down, seeing Ruby burying her face in the fabric of his shirt. "Uh... what are you doing, Ruby?" 

"I'm hugging you," she said, muffled since she hadn't moved from her position. "My uncle says that hugs help people when words can't. And I don't have words to help you."

"O-oh," Ray said quietly, not quite sure how to respond. He felt happy, warm, and he heard Ruby gasp. 

"You got hot!" She exclaimed in excitement, patting his arm as if trying to see where the sudden warmth was coming from. 

"Yeah," Ray said, not quite wanting this moment to end. It was weirdly peaceful and calm, no one shouting, no one demand in and hoping that he would remember them, no one pushing and prodding and cutting and burning and - 

He cut his own train of thought off, choosing instead to close his eyes and rest his head against the stone of the fountain they were all sitting near. He didn't want to think about the Mage right now, about all that happened to him. And yet he felt his mind drifting to it, he felt the fire in his stomach and he drew into himself, hearing small feet scramble away as he got a little too hot, when his fire came unbidden. 

He took in a deep breath, forcing the fire to dissipate. It worked, but even he could tell his skin was a lot hotter than normal afterwards. The kids kept their distance, just enough to be safe but not enough as to make Ray feel alienated. 

He only got up and moved when Joel showed up, the kids sending him wary looks, as if they didn't quite trust him. He walked straight to Ray before looking a bit awkward, saying, "Uh... want to... hang out?" Ray glanced at Ruby who shrugged, motioning for him to go with Joel. He turned back to him, nodded, and stood up.

"Yeah, sure, why not?" 

That seemed to lift Joel's spirits as he led Ray through some streets. The man's fast paced speech spewed out facts about the village, things from its founding to a few days ago when he had almost burned his hand at the smithy. He talked a lot about a guy named Adam that he liked to mess with and who messed with him almost as much in retaliation. Ray found himself relaxing a bit as he kept talking, smiling and nodding along, though he'd be lying if he said he was constantly listening to what Joel was saying. More like listening to him talk, focusing on his voice and pushing his worries back for another day. 

"Hey, Ray," Joel said after a beat of silence that made them both stop. 

He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"I know you don't, uh, remember me and all that," he started, looking incredibly nervous. "But, uh, I just... was wondering ifyou'dstillwanttobefriends?" 

That threw Ray for a loop, and all he could do was stutter back, "U-uh, yeah, I don't- I don't see why not?" He flinched internally as his statement came out as a question. 

Joel seemed to brighten at the acceptance, though, and a huge grin threatened to split apart his face. "Great! We can go check out the farms next! We've been trying to grow some flowers. You'd probably like to see them."

Ray kept smiling and nodded, though it was just a little forced. Joel had forgotten that he didn't remember anything again. He shrugged it off, though, getting the feeling that it wouldn't matter soon anyways. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad one.

They started walking, Ray following Joel as he went towards what he could only assume was the farms. As they were walking past the central square, though, Ray felt himself stop. He swallowed hard, bringing his hands close to his chest to keep them from shaking. The abrupt mood change left him disorientated and confused, a sick feeling winding itself around his stomach and squeezing. He looked around shakily before he ducked into an alley to escape the view of the square. It took Joel no time to notice something was wrong, but that didn't mean he knew what it was. All he could do was follow Ray as he crumpled to the ground, trying to make himself as small as possible as he felt the flames flicker over him. 

"R-Ray? What's wrong? What happened?" Joel asked, trying to decide what to do with his hands. He settled on hovering them close to Ray, wary of the fire. 

He took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm down, only to feel the panic rise again. He had seen _him_ in the square, standing there and talking to people he probably knew, and somehow, instinctually, he _knew_ this was real, not just some weird dream or hallucination. He knew he was there, and he could still feel him, could still feel the metal table under him and the heat as it ripped through him. 

He curled into himself tighter, hearing a sob rip out of his throat. He didn't like this, he didn't like the empty, helpless feeling in his chest. He wanted to be far away from here, from the village. He wanted to be home, but he wasn't really sure where that was. 

He was only jarred out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder briefly and Joel yelling, "Ray!"

His head shot up and for the first time he felt the tears streaming down his eyes and landing on the ground, smoking. His throat felt closed off and he couldn't bring himself to speak, only look at Joel with as much fear as he could muster. 

Joel crouched down so their faces were level. "Ray," he said firmly, "Something is wrong and I need you to tell me what it is."

He swallowed again and forced the words out of his mouth. "The Mage. He's here." Saying the words out loud only made it feel all the more real. 

"What?" Joel almost shouted, clearly alarmed. "He is?" His face morphed through confusion, then understanding, before finally settling on anger. Just like Michael. He immediately stood up, taking a step back towards the square, only for Ray to leap up and grab his arm tightly, shaking his head fiercely. He didn't want this to end like with Michael, he didn't want him to go and possibly get himself killed in the process. 

"Y-you can't go. Please. He'll hurt you." Ray let go of Joel's arm as he noticed the smoke starting to come from it and the slightly pained look on his face. He clenched his hands into fists, forcing himself not to reach out and try to touch him. He wasn't stable enough right now. He could hurt him on accident. 

"He won't hurt me," Joel said very matter of factly, though Ray could still see the anger behind his eyes. It scared him, just a little. "I promise."

Ray didn't believe him. He wanted to reach out and grab Joel, he wanted to keep him as far away from the Mage as possible, but he couldn't. He could only follow close behind as he walked back to the square, mouth working but no words coming out. He stood near the corner, not quite willing to go out just yet. Not until the Mage was long gone and he was safe again. That didn't stop his eyes from tracking Joel as he moved, though. 

He waltzed up to the square and Ray was surprised by how calm and collected he looked. If he hadn't known who the man standing there, practically cloaked in shadow even against the harsh light of the sun, he would have missed the slightly angry look burning behind Joel's eyes when he looked at him. 

Joel walked up to one of the bystanders, whispered something into their ear, and sent them away. At that point the others there had noticed him, including the Mage. Ray felt his fingers dig into the stone of the building, his fire blackening the sides. He wanted to look away, to run and never look back, but he couldn't move his eyes off of Joel as he said something to the Mage. The Mage said something back and lifted his hand. 

The next thing Ray knew Joel was a few feet farther away from where he had been standing before, on the ground, unmoving. He let out a strangled scream, feeling his legs grow numb and his heart beat irrationally. He yelped a bit when heads were turned his way and ducked behind the building again, trying to keep his breathing under control. It didn't help that he heard, very clearly, footsteps coming his way. He couldn't breathe suddenly and he tried to move, only to feel like he was trying to walk underwater. 

He thought he heard someone talking, but he couldn't really be sure. He felt someone grab at his arm and he reacted immediately, spinning around and holding his hands out, fire collecting before bursting out and pushing whoever was there backwards and away from him. He stumbled back from the white-toothed, vicious smile that swam in front of him. He shook so badly he couldn't move properly, his heart beating fast and his mind refusing to focus on anything around him. 

He couldn't quite movie his body correctly but he still felt his hands lift up again, he felt heat gather, and again fire burst out, but this time it was more focused, more controlled. His arms suddenly jerked down, the fire propelling itself towards the ground where it exploded, sending stone everywhere. 

Ray stumbled back, shaking his head. He felt his foot hit against something and the next thing he knew he was on the ground. He grunted and rubbed his back, slightly glad for the pain that made it at least slightly possible to focus. His eyes found the smoking hole that had definitely not been there a second ago. He also saw the man now standing over him, leering down at him. 

He felt his heart skip a beat. 

_This couldn't be happening again, please don't let this happen again this can't happen again, not again, not-_

"So you got out," the Mage mused. All Ray could do was look slightly confused but mostly terrified. "From the Nether," he specified. 

"W-what?" Ray stuttered, slowly scooting away from the man in front of him. "I- I don't...?" 

He sneered. "No, of course you don't. You don't know much of anything. You don't even really know who those people are who destroyed my lab." He took a step forward and placed his face firmly in front of Ray's. "But I do. Thanks to you." 

Ray's eyes widened. What the hell was he talking about? 

A hand rested itself on his head and he stiffened. The fire licked across his skin and the panic was back. "Don't worry, though. You'll know what I'm talking about soon."  

A shouting came from somewhere in front of him and before he could blink the Mage was leaning closer, pressing something against his chest. He tried to struggle but black was already creeping into his vision. 

The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was Ryan, his muffled yelling not quite reaching Ray. 


	24. Tightrope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not happy with this chapter but I'm tired of wrestling with the transitions so here you go.

When they got back to the village they were glad to have made it back in once piece. The ones who had not seen anything but dark walls and dim lights for who knew how long were excited to look around, t meet new people and actually have _freedom_ for once. Ryan was the first to notice that something was a little off about the village. For one, there was a distinct and unsettling lack of people on the streets. The air was still and quiet and the only form of movement was a curtain being drawn closed in a nearby window. Michael was the first one to notice Joel lying on the ground.  
  
Burnie and Jack ran forwards, everyone else following close behind. There was a pressure in the air as Jack pressed a finger against Joel's wrist. The silence that followed seemed to last a lifetime. "He's alive," Jack said with relief and everyone relaxed marginally. There was still a strange feeling that Ryan couldn’t quite shake, and by everyone else’s expressions they couldn’t either. Jack turned back to everyone present. "I don't know what happened, but I think he got knocked out. Burnie, can you and Hullum take him to your house so he can rest?"  
  
Burnie nodded, looking around cautiously as he did as Jack had asked of him. Ryan rubbed his hands together nervously. The Mage had come here, right? Or he had at least come this direction. With the lack of people, well, anywhere, it was safe to assume that something had happened. But exactly _what_ was still a mystery.  
  
He was on high alert, jumping at every little sound and shushing anyone that tried to talk. It took too long to hear the low voice, and as soon as he did he was off towards the building he had heard it. He sensed a large surge of magic which helped him figure out the exact location, though it confused him a bit when the magic dissipated almost entirely. It felt strangely like someone was hiding it.  
  
He pushed it out of his mind as soon as he saw Ray. He was on the ground, a blackened crater smoking a few feet away. He looked exhausted and terrified and confused all at once.  
  
"Ray," Ryan breathed out, dashing towards him and kneeling down in front of him. His eyes seemed to refuse to focus on anything, which was worrying. "Ray," he tried again, reaching forward, only for the younger man’s eyes to flutter shut and his body fall forwards. Ryan let out a yelp, catching him and wavering his hands over him, trying to figure out what happened. He felt his fingers brush against a powerful magical signature emanating from his chest.  
  
He heard someone running forward, only for the sound to stop abruptly, strangely muted shouting just barely reaching him. He took his eyes off Ray for a minute to look behind him. He felt his heart skip when he saw a wall of darkness and nothing else.  
  
"Well, this is a surprise, isn't it?" Ryan jerked his head around again, his eyes landing on the dark figure a few feet away. He slowly levered himself into a standing position, clutching Ray close to his chest in a bridal-style hold. He slowly inched himself away from the man in front of him. "Don't look at me like that. It's no way to greet a former... well, we were never really friends, now were we?"  
  
"What do you want?" Ryan snapped, trying to gather enough energy to break out of whatever hold the Mage had over Ray.  
  
He could have sworn he saw the Mage's eyes flicker to Ray. The younger man seemed to whimper and his hands balled into fists, clutching at the fabric of Ryan's shirt. "I want a lot of things," he said darkly. "But that doesn't mean I'm guaranteed to get them. For example, I want your friend there," he made a vague gesture towards Ray. "But I can't keep him easily, especially when his natural resistances come into play. That, and you. And all the other... Achievement Hunters." He seemed to spit out the name like it was a curse. He smiled then, an eerie, foreboding smile that sent a shiver down Ryan's spine. "But if everything goes according to plan... well, then I'll have what the Blaze couldn't give me."  
  
Ryan's hand curled into a fist, and he concentrated on gathering energy. It would take a few more seconds, though, so he asked, "And what would that be?"  
  
The smile widened. "Soldiers."  
  
The statement sent another shiver through him, but he focused on latching on to the magic signature around Ray - a curse, he could now identify - and broke it with a swift surge of energy. It took more out of him then he had initially expected and black started creeping in the edges of his vision, though it faded quickly.  
  
Ray jerked before gasping loudly, his eyes fluttering open. They were still strangely unfocused as he pushed himself away from Ryan, landing on the ground awkwardly. Ryan took a step forward, only to stop when a strange noise rang through the space they were in. It sounded almost identical to a blaze. And it came from Ray.  
  
"Hmm... so monsters work almost identically to animals. It just takes longer and higher stress situations for the monster's instincts to take over," the Mage mused calmly. Ryan had no idea how he could react to what was happening with such restrained curiosity. If it were him he would have ran away already.  
  
The sound echoed again, and Ryan jerked back as a wave of heat slammed into him. The fire seemed to condense around Ray, the edges of his body becoming blurred and rods of fire forming around him. Ryan blinked and before he knew it Ray was standing in front of the Mage, who still looked as calm as ever. He caught a glance of the younger man’s face and his heart just beat faster. Framed in fire it didn’t quite look like _Ray_ , but more like the monsters they fought in the Nether.  
  
A hand shot out and gripped at the Mage's throat, another at his face. There was fire everywhere around the two, licking and dancing and consuming. Ryan had to squint to see anything at all, but he could just barely see two silhouettes, dark against the light of the fire. When it finally started to fade Ray’s legs seemed to give out from under him and Ryan started when he realized the Mage was nowhere to be seen. His magical signature was gone as well and the absence of a body implied that the Mage wasn't dead. Injured, maybe. Fatally, maybe. He could have even died. But there was no physical body, and that meant there was a possibility of a respawn.  
  
The sound of voices yelling broke him out of his thoughts. "Ryan! What the hell happened?" Gavin yelled, skidding to a stop when he noticed Ray. "X-Ray! Is he ok?"  
  
"I think so, Gavin," Ryan muttered, more to calm himself down then the other man. He could hear other people gathering around, too, but he was too focused on Ray. He kneeled down next to the unconscious man, feeling for a pulse. He sighed in relief. "I think he just expended too much energy. He'll be fine after sleeping for a while."  
  
"Woah..." a voice said from directly next to him. Ryan glanced up to see... Ray. Right. There were two of them. "This is trippy..."  
  
He started to reach forwards before Ryan had a chance to stop him. As soon as his incorporeal hand made contact with skin there was a jolt of energy and Ray's body jerked, his eyes fluttering open to reveal white eyes. Ghost Ray tried to jerk his hand back, only to have it stopped by what looked like glowing white ropes winding around his hand and up his arm. Ray yelled in confusion before sending a pleading look towards Ryan. He tried to do something, anything, but he found that he could only stare back, dumbfounded. He wasn't positive he knew what was going on, but he got the feeling it wasn't quite a bad thing.  
  
A second later there was only one Ray, breathing heavily. His eyes were still strangely white, though not quite as white as the other Ray's eyes had been. There was a white streak through his hair and a weary look on his face. It took him a few seconds to notice Ryan, and when he did he rested his head against the ground and closed his eyes. "I remember," he breathed, almost too quietly to hear.  
  
"I- you- you do?" Ryan stuttered, not sure how to feel after the spectacle that had just occurred. Ryan became vaguely aware of the presence of a group of people watching from a distance. He chanced a glance back, seeing the rest of the Hunters standing there with various expressions of shock and confusion on their faces.  
  
"Yeah," Ray whispered. He groaned and hauled himself up into a sitting position. He was visibly struggling to keep his eyes open. He held a hand out and Ryan took it, helping him stand up. It was slightly worrying how heavily Ray was leaning against him for support.  
  
Michael rushed forwards to help, looping Ray's other arm over his shoulders. He blinked slowly at the other man. "'M sorry, Michael."  
  
The other man stiffened a bit. "What're you talking about, Ray?"  
  
"'M talking about everything that happened to you." His head nodded a bit, and it was clear to everyone that Ray was just barely awake. "If I hadn't have gotten captured you never would have been hurt. Didn't mean for this to happen."  
  
Michael rolled his eyes, though there was no humor in his face or voice. "Go to sleep, Ray."  
  
He made a grumbling noise in reply but soon his body was limp and they laid him down on a bed in Burnie's house and went to sleep themselves. It had been a long week. Explanations could wait a while.


	25. Hiraeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiraeth- a Welsh word meaning a homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or that never was.

Ray didn't wake up for a while. His dreams were filled with faded memories, some good and others bad, all of them confusing and disjointed. He could recall most things that had happened through the course of his life, important things worth remembering and others that didn’t particularly matter. It was definitely more than he remembered before but it was strange and distanced, like it had happened to someone else. His mind supplied slightly blurry pictures and low voices, and he felt an awful lot like he was floating through an ocean of memories than anything else.

There were some memories from a burned out and abandoned village where he knew, somehow, was where he was kept while still captured by the Mage. He remembered Michael and what had happened to him on the way back to the village Ray had been left to stay in. But… he had also been with them?

_Yeah,_ his mind assured him. _You were there. But it wasn’t really you. It was an echo of who you used to be._

Ray wasn’t quite sure how he had come to that conclusion but it made about as much sense as everything else seemed to lately so he just accepted it.   
  
Suddenly the images around him changed, from blurry to sharply focused. His musings were cast away and he couldn’t quite focus on anything going on around him. Fire roared in his ears and his hands were wrapped around skin. He felt a burning anger in his mind that didn't let him think. It didn't let him move his body and he could only stare at the man slowly burning under his fingers. He wasn't even trying to get away. _Why wasn't he trying to get away?_  
  
_I don't want to do this, please don't let me do this,_ his mind pleaded with his body. He jerked a bit and he felt himself falling. When his body hit something solid he jerked awake, finding himself on the ground, blankets wrapped around his waist.  
  
He felt his heart hammering in his chest and with each beat it became harder and harder to remember anything, which only served to make him panic. He laced his fingers through his hair, struggling to remember something, anything. All his mind could do, though, was desperately repeat, _Not again, not again, please don't let this happen again._  
  
He slowly got up, his legs shaking so badly he almost couldn't walk. He leaned against the wall for support as he stumbled towards the door, all the while desperately searching for any memories. Every time he thought he had found one, though, another surge of panic would shoot through him and it would be gone.  
  
He had stumbled down the hallway for a few minutes before anything interesting happened.  
  
"Ray?" a tired voice asked, and he jumped so badly that he almost fell over. His head whipped around and he found the owner of the voice. He felt like he should know him, but nothing came to him besides the vague feeling of familiarity. "What are you doing up?"  
  
"I- I-" he tried, stumbling away from the man and shaking his head. Why couldn't he remember anything? He should be able to remember something. The man obviously knew him, but for the life of him he couldn't find a name.  
  
"Ray? Are you alright?" The man took a step forward, obviously concerned, any hint of tiredness seeping out of him all at once. The man reached a hand out and Ray froze, unable to move.  
  
He squeezed his eyes shut and felt himself shaking. He wrapped his arms around his middle and found himself muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know who you are I'm sorry."  
  
"I- what?" the man asked, sounding slightly panicked. "Ray, I thought you said you remembered-"  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about I'm sorry," he muttered, drawing into himself. He stiffened when he felt arms wrap around him. Strong, sturdy arms connected to a much bigger man. He hesitantly relaxed into the embrace, squeezing his eyes shut even tighter.  
  
"I don't know what's wrong, Ray, but I need you to calm down," the man said quietly, soothingly. It took a good five minutes for him to calm down entirely, but when he did he wrapped his arms around the older man, returning the hug.  
  
"I'm sorry, Ryan. I don't know what happened." He really didn't. One minute it was like his mind was a black hole, the next it was crowded with memories and names and people.

"I don't either," Ryan said, finally releasing the hug. "But I don't think it's anything good. Whatever the Mage did to you to take your memories away in the first place must've left some scars."  
  
"Yeah," Ray muttered quietly. "Yeah, probably."

Ryan still looked concerned. “Hopefully it’ll heal with time. Do you want me to help you get back to your room?”

Ray shook his head. Ryan looked like he wanted to protest but he didn’t say anything, instead leaving Ray to find his way back to his room. It was strangely dark and quiet in the room, but he didn’t particularly care. He pulled the blankets back onto the bed and around him and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn't dare try to sleep again after what happened, so he just sat there and tried not to let his thoughts wander. Too bad for him, though, because his mind had other ideas.  
  
Back in the hallway Ryan had looked at him with so much pity. He had looked at him like he was about to break at any second and that he had to be there to collect the pieces.  
  
He had his memories back. Why wasn't everything fixed? Why didn't he feel like _Ray_ again? Why did it still feel like he had stolen someone precious from the others? Why couldn't he go back to being the person he used to be? He didn't want to be what he was now, what the Mage had turned him into.  
  
He was so _tired_ of everything bad that could happen happening. He just wanted to return to the simpler times when he didn't have to worry about anything and no one expected anything of him. But the only place he knew where to get that kind of escape was the Nether and he was pretty sure everyone would flip their shit if he went back there. He supposed his only option was to keep moving forward and hope he'd find himself in a better place.

He didn’t fall asleep again that night, but he assured Ryan he had when he came to wake him up the next morning. 


	26. Moving On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright well first I'm going to start out by saying 3k hits?? Thanks so much omg???? I'm not sure what you all see in this fic but apparently it's something good. Secondly I'd like to say that I'm not totally happy with this chapter but I want to post it before I sleep because I start school tomorrow, which brings me to the third thing I'd like to say before we get into this chapter. Updates are going to be super slow and spaced out for a while because of the aforementioned school starting up again and also because I'm working on another fic that will be posted... soon? At least I hope it will be. If you have any questions regarding it or really anything else you can send an ask to my tumblr (just like my ao3). Well, I've been rambling enough. Enjoy the chapter!

"What the hell is a respawn?" Geoff demanded, almost slamming his fist down on the table. He didn’t look angry, exactly, but he did look annoyed, which, since it was Geoff, could potentially be worse. Ray flinched at the sudden sound. Geoff must have noticed because he continued, in a lower voice then before, "Is this something else important that you've been keeping from us?"

Ryan winced. Geoff sounded… betrayed wasn’t the right word for it, but it was something close nonetheless. "N-no, no, it just... never came up before?" Ryan tried to explain sheepishly.The explanations of the events the day prior had been going smoothly for a while, but it obviously wasn't going to stay that way. He wasn’t sure why he would have ever thought that. They were the Achievement Hunters, after all.

"Well?" Gavin prodded, leaning forward in his seat. He seemed the most interested out of anyone, which wasn’t a surprise. Gavin was always drawn to new and exciting things. "What is it?"  
  
"It's... it's a very, _very_ powerful form of magic. It takes years to learn how to do it and a tremendous amount of energy to use." He chuckled nervously and brushed his hand against his chest. "Basically it... revives you if you die. Your body is transported away from danger and your magical signature is basically destroyed because you've used most of your magic. It takes about a day of rest for it to come back, but when it does you’re good as new."  
  
"So... the Mage didn't move on purpose?" Geoff asked. "He let himself die?"  
  
Ryan nodded. "Yeah. I can't sense him anywhere and I don't really have any idea where I would start looking in the first place so... yeah, I think he let himself die. It was his escape plan."

“Pretty risky escape plan,” Michael muttered darkly. “How could he have he have been certain that the magic wouldn’t fail and he’d just be dead? It would have saved us a lot of trouble if it had.”  
  
"But he's not really dead," Gavin pointed out. "He's still out there. What if he comes back?"  
  
No one was willing to answer that question, so they sat in silence for a few minutes. From all that the Mage had said before… before he’d died it was obvious he was planning something. What that was, though, was still a mystery. He had a suspicion that it would affect the Achievement Hunters even more than it already had.  
  
The silence was only broken when Ray asked, barely above a whisper, "Can you?"  
  
Ryan blinked. "What?"  
  
"Can you do the thing the Mage did?"  
  
"Respawn?" Ray nodded. "U-uh... y-yeah, I can."

There was an uproar of noise, mostly voices shouting things like "What? You can?" and "Why did you never tell me this?" It finally died down when Ryan opened his mouth to talk, saying, "I never told you because... well, because it's never come up."

“Is that going to be your answer to everything? ‘It never came up’?” Geoff huffed, crossing his arms indignantly. Ryan shrugged sheepishly. “Well next time an earth shattering confession comes out of your mouth I want something better then ‘it never came up’.”

"Uh… yeah, I’ll get back to you on that. So..." Ryan said, trying to make it as obvious as possible that he wanted to change the subject. He didn’t want them prodding into his old life and finding even more things he’d never told them. He wanted to keep those things to himself. "What do we do now?"  
  
"We go home," Geoff said after a moment's consideration. "We don't know where the Mage is and we've been gone long enough. It's time to go back to Achievement City."

“Oh thank God,” Gavin muttered, rubbing his eyes with his hands. “I was starting to worry we were never going to go home.”

"...What about the Changed?" Michael demanded. He looked ready to get into a shouting match with Geoff if he said something Michael didn’t like. "Most of them don't exactly have a home to go back to."

“Well… Achievement City hasn’t had any new citizens in a while,” Geoff said slowly. “I guess if anyone wants to come with us, they can. We have enough land to support more people. I don’t know why we wouldn’t let them come.”

Both Ray and Michael relaxed noticeably. Well, Ryan mused, they did have quite a lot in common with the rest of the Changed. It was probably a worry of theirs, what would happen to the others. Hopefully the ones without a home to return to would accept their offer, or, if not them, stay in Cock Byte. It wasn’t a good idea to be alone, at least for them. Maybe together they could make something better out of their situation.

When Geoff announced that they were going home to the crowd they had assembled in Burnie’s house Ryan could practically feel a few of the Changed stiffen. “But we are willing to take as many people as possible back with us. If you don’t have a home to return to… well, then I guess you’re free to call Achievement City your home now.”

There were shouts and even some cheers and many of the people gathered wanted to come with them. Among those people were almost all of the Changed, barring a few that decided they wanted to stay in Cock Byte. Lindsay was more than happy to come along, a fact that seemed to lift Michael’s spirits significantly. Matt and Jeremy were fine with going anywhere, as long as they didn’t get separated, but they agreed to come to Achievement City with them. Kdin explained that he did have a home, but he’d stick around just a little while longer just because he wanted to see That Major Asshole (as he’d referred to the Mage) put in his place. Tina agreed to come as well and Ray had smiled a bit at that.

Ryan, who had been standing aside as everything went on, felt a tug on his leg. He looked down to see a group of kids staring at him. “Uh… hello?”

“Is Ray going to leave?” a black haired girl asked. Ryan didn’t make it a habit to talk to kids, but he was fairly certain her name was Ruby.

“Uh… yeah. We’re going home.”

Ruby pouted at him. “He’s gonna come visit us though, right? And he’s going to say goodbye before he leaves, right?” Ryan nodded, hoping it would appease the little girl. “Hmm… well alright.” She squinted up at him. “You better tell him to say goodbye to us before he leaves.”

“Yeah I’ll be sure to do that.” Ruby nodded at him and walked away.

“What was that about?” Gavin asked, walking up to Ryan.

“I’m not sure. I think Ray made some friends.”

“Huh. Well, alright then.” Gavin shrugged. “Oh, Geoff says you have to get ready to go. We’re leaving in a few hours.” Ryan glanced around, noticing that there were significantly less people in the room then before. He assumed they were all getting ready to leave as well.

“Alright,” he nodded, before asking, “Hey, Gav, do you know where Ray is? Some kids want to say goodbye before he leaves.”


	27. (Almost) Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaay I'm back from the dead (kinda). Unfortunately this fic won't have a set update schedule for a while. I'm pretty much just going to update when I have the motivation to write it which could mean it updates twice a week or once a month, we'll see. I'll try not to leave you guys hanging too long but I'm working on a few other projects atm so we'll see. Now, on with the fic!

The city was a welcome sight after so long gone. Well, in reality it wasn't that long, but it sure as hell felt that way. As the large party stumbled into the center of the city Gavin took off running into his house. No one stopped him. Anyone even vaguely familiar with his antics just rolled their eyes. There were mumbles between the people gathered, no one quite sure what to do. Geoff drew himself up and took a deep breath.

"Alright fuckwads," Geoff proclaimed loudly, startling a few of the people gathered in the crowd. "We've got a few more additions to our lovely little family here in Achievement City. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of houses. Fortunately, we have plenty of room."

Jack's eyes seemed to light up at that. "Are we going to build more houses?" He asked hopefully. Geoff rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. Of course Jack would be excited at the prospect of building more houses.

"I mean we kind of have to." Geoff pointed at Ray. "Alright, your - uh... the house that used to be yours has enough room to house like... three more people? So who wants to move in with the human torch?"

"Uh..." Matt raised his hand awkwardly, clearly unsure of himself. "Me and Jeremy could move in. We wouldn't really mind it all that much."

"A-and me, too," a voice piped up from the back of the crowd. Tina, if Geoff remembered correctly.

"Alright," Geoff nodded. "Ray, you got any problem with that?"

"U-uh... no, not really," Ray stuttered out, sending a weak smile towards Matt and Jeremy and another, more genuine one towards Tina.

Michael crossed his arms. "Lindsay can stay with me," he said in a tone that dared Geoff to argue with him.

Geoff just raised an eyebrow. "Alright. Lindsay's staying with Michael I guess." His eyes found the last member of the party that hadn't been housed yet. "Uh... dragon dude-"

"Kdin."

Geoff waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, Kdin. Who do you want to stay with? I -"

"Your house is big enough."

Geoff was stuck between being confused and slightly annoyed. Eventually, though, his curiosity won out. "Big enough for what?"

Kdin sent him a withering look. "Geoff. I think you forgot. This-" he motioned vaguely to his body. "-isn't normally what I look like. You've seen what I normally look like. Your house has plenty of room for both me and you, whatever form."

"Uh... alright then," Geoff agreed awkwardly. "I guess it's all settled then."

With that everyone dispersed to their houses or - in the case of the newcomers - to the houses they were staying in. It didn't take long for everyone to settle in, though Ray was still having a hard time with it. His memories may have returned but without his old house to sleep in it was hard to ground himself, to remind himself that all this was real and he'd known these people for years. There was no need to feel so nervous. Honestly, though, he could only hope the feeling faded with time. Until then, though, he would just have to get used to it, he supposed.

Despite his internal monologue he still jumped when someone knocked on his door.

"Who- uh, who is it?" Ray called out nervously. He really hoped it wasn't one of the people that had just moved in. He wasn't ready for that kind of interaction right now. He preferred not to think of the times he’d talked to them in those dark cells and other then that he really didn’t get much of a chance to talk to any of them. Well, except Tina. She was nice.

"It's Michael," came the reply. It was oddly restrained, though. That only made Ray worry.

He got up and opened the door, a very tired Michael pushing his way into Ray's room. "Hey! At least ask to come in first, asshole," Ray muttered, closing the door after him. In all honesty he really didn't care, but he felt like it was something he would have said if the circumstances were different.

Michael practically threw himself on Ray's bed before turning to face the other man. "Do you... ever get nightmares?"

Ray felt his hands clench into fists. He bit the inside of his cheek hard. "I mean I'm pretty sure everyone does."

"No, no, I mean..." Michael hesitated. "About what happened to you when... uh..." He trailed off but Ray knew what he was talking about. He was talking about what had happened to him when he was with the Mage. Honestly, Ray was surprised it hadn't effected Michael more than it had. He'd seemed almost exactly the same, almost unaffected by it all. Maybe he was just good at hiding it.

Ray swallowed and forced himself out of his thoughts. Finally, he managed to say, "Yeah."

Michael nodded, his eyes wandering down to his hands. Ray hadn't noticed how tightly they were clenched, the knuckles turning white. "Do you... ever hear... whispers?"

Ray winced as a memory flashed in his mind. A field of tall grass, hands that weren't his, a strange voice trying to command him. He shook his head and clenched his jaw. " _No,_ " he said firmly. "Do you?"

Michael's eyes flickered back to his hands instead of at Ray. "Not so much anymore but... sometimes. You really don't?"

Ray sighed. "No. But... Michael, I... I don't know if you remember it but... I heard what you heard, back when we were in that field. When you... uh... lost control."

"You did?" Michael asked, somewhere between relieved and scared. "Wait... you remember that?"

Ray nodded. "Y-yeah. A little bit." He shuffled his feet nervously before walking over and sitting on the bed with Michael. "L-look, if you're scared of loosing control again... you can stay with me for the night. I helped you last time. I can probably help you again. Somehow."

Michael looked like a huge weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. "T-thanks, dude. I really appreciate it."

Ray grinned crookedly before grabbing a pillow and throwing it at Michael's head. The other man didn't even try to catch it. "Yeah, yeah, just try to get some sleep, asshole."

It was the closest he'd gotten in a long time to feeling like himself again.


End file.
